1,576 Miles Later
by EvolvingIt
Summary: Amy has spent three weeks wallowing in her self-pity after being rejected by Karma, but that has to stop once she is forced into going on a road trip to North Carolina with all of the people she had been hoping to avoid for the entire summer. (Coarse language)
1. Getting My Shit Together

As soon as my eyes fluttered open I felt the painful sting behind them and the thumping that echoed through my head when I moved to swing my arms over my face. My groan rippled through the room, muffled by my arms and the grogginess of my voice as I rolled over onto my stomach, only to regret it seconds later. My stomach churned and swirled with each movement and as I lay pressed down on the bed I felt like I was out in the middle of the ocean with the swaying of the insane amount of tequila I had consumed last night. Faint flashes of blurred images came back into my head. Memories of me sitting for hours in a bar that I no longer remember the name of, embarrassing myself with my drunken slurs and humiliating dancing. Another grunt escaped my mouth as I attempted to push the memories to a dark and deep place of my mind, hoping they would fade eventually with all of the other memories I was hiding away.

I rolled awkwardly onto my side, moving slowly in an attempt to steady the tossing in my stomach, feeling my eyes become blinded by the bright sunlight that was shining in through my window. I felt like I was under an interrogation light, like something from those terrible detective shows that Karma and I used to watch all the time. I felt my stomach lurch when her name filtered into my head, the familiar clenching of my heart feeling like it was making me breathless. Every time my mind faltered in it's exhausting efforts to keep anything to do with Karma as far away as possible, I felt like a giant knife was being stabbed into every possible area of my body, the pain hurting so much that sometimes my head became fuzzy. Right now I was struggling to distinguish whether it was Karma or the tequila that was blurring my mind, but I didn't have the energy to decipher the two and instead pulled the covers up until I was cascaded under the heat of the blankets. When I was younger I used to hide under my covers if I was scared of something, praying that it wouldn't find me if it couldn't see me. So here I was hiding from the constant crushing pain of rejection, yet it was futile when the rejection was already embedded in a part of my brain that wouldn't be blurred no matter how much tequila I consumed.

"Jesus fucking Christ, Amy. I am going to murder you one day, I am actually going to drag you from this bed and beat the shit out of you as soon as you are sober enough to feel my punches."

I let out a low grumble of complaint into the room when the high pitched squeal of Shane cracked through the room from behind me. The sound of my door banging off the wall felt like someone had smacked me over the head with a hammer, multiple times. I whipped my head round to see Shane stood in the doorway with his arms crossed and mixture of anger and sympathy plastered on his face. I regretted the sharp movement of my head seconds later when I was stretching for the bin that I had thankfully set next to my bed last night, emptying the small contents of my stomach into it when I felt the vomit burn its way up my throat. I was expecting Shane to scream or to run out in a panic at the mere sight of vomit, but recently this sight was something he had become accustomed to, so instead I felt my sticky hair being pulled back from my face and a hand rubbing circles in my back. It reminded me of how Karma used to react whenever I was sick, this time the thought of her only made me heave one more time.

"Are you fucking kidding me, she's not ready? You said she would be ready Shane." I lifted my head weakly from the bin and struggling to look up from the angle in which I was hanging off the bed, but from the corner of my eyes I could see a pissed-off-looking-Lauren stood in the entrance to the bathroom with her hands waving about in the air as she glared at Shane. "Amy, we're meant to be at Karma's house in 20 minutes and you're still half naked in bed with what appears to be vomit in your hair… Why the hell do you always end up coming back half naked?"

I ignored Lauren's questions, partly because I didn't have the energy to argue with her right now, but also partly because I didn't know the answer. The first morning after I had awoken to not remember a single thing, my lack of clothing had worried me for a significant amount of time, yet now I didn't care. I hoped it just meant I had a good time and made memories that would maybe grace me one day.

"Go away, Lauren," I grumbled as I rolled over onto my back and further into the centre of the bed. I could see Shane moving the bin further away so I didn't kick it when I got out, before returning to the edge of the bed. The anger was now gone from his face and the complete look of pity made me want to grab my pillow and suffocate myself. It was the same pitying look I had been getting for weeks now, because as per usual gossip in Austin spreads like wildfire and before I knew it, everyone seemed to know about my crushing denial. I could handle the whispering and the comments that some people made, yet I still hadn't mastered the art of handling the looks. I felt like eyes were glued to me as I walked through school. Maybe it was because I always looked like someone who had just rolled out of bed and half the time I was still drunk, or maybe it was just because I had told my fake girlfriend that I loved her and she had stomped on me with her shoe like I was an ant.

I rubbed at my eyes as I pushed myself up in bed, shaking my head to fade the memories of Karma, yet it never worked. I knew it wasn't fair to blame this all on her, to say that she broke me, yet it made it easier. It made it easier to say that if maybe she had just told me she loved me too everything would be so much simpler. Yet how was I to even know that? It didn't matter what the result would have been, because it never happened and I'm sick of thinking about the 'what could have beens'. I opened my eyes when I heard Shane clearing his throat and looking back over to Lauren at the door who was practically pulling her hair out from stress.

"Lauren, give us a minute okay? You finish getting ready, you still look like shit so you might want to re-think the outfit. We're driving to North Carolina, not a brothel." Shane flashed her a smirked before laughing to himself when she turned and slammed the door behind her, my head pounding once more. When he turned back to me and stretched to pull the covers off me I gripped onto them like a small child refusing to share their toys. I wrapped my legs around them pathetically, feeling my entire body being pulled down the bed with each tug from Shane, surprise washing over me when I resulted to being a curled ball right at the bottom of the bed.

"You should just leave now, I'm not going. I don't know why I agreed to go in the first place, it was fucking stupid."

"Because you know that if you don't go things between you and Karma are just going to keep getting worse. How long has it been now, three weeks? You have barely spoken in three weeks and look at you Amy, you're throwing up over the side of your bed and getting sick in your hair yet again. How many more times does this need to happen?"

"Stop being so dramatic Shane," I snapped slightly, pushing his hands away and watching as he pursed his lips.

"Dramatic? Amy, last week I found you passed out on your bathroom floor, a couple days later you didn't show up to school so when I came to see what was wrong I found you with your head down the toilet. About three days ago I got a phone call from some random girl saying you were so drunk that you could barely walk and that someone should probably come and take you home. I am not being dramatic Amy, I'm being realistic. How many more times can I scrape you off the bathroom floor before I have to call Karma?"

"You promised me you wouldn't call Karma," I spoke quickly, disappointed in the clear sound of pleading in my voice but ignoring it when I realised how much I would plead with Shane if it meant he wouldn't.

"Amy, I promised that to you the day after your mom's wedding when the only thing that would make you stop crying about Karma long enough to get you out of Lauren's bed and into your own was to promise not to ring Karma. I don't know if that promise should still apply now, it's been three weeks and everything still looks pretty much the same from your point of view."

"What happened to your gay scouts' honour shit?" I snapped at him before softening my frown when I saw his sad smile. My mind flashed back to the morning after my mom's wedding, the memory or Lauren finding me in her bed and not knowing what to do except call Shane. I closed my eyes for a second to shake the memory before looking out of the window again to try and gage what time it was. I remember that Shane told me he would be here early to pick me up, and the burning in my eyes confirmed to be that it was most definitely in the early hours of the morning that no one should ever see. All I wanted right now was to sleep.

"She does care, you know." I glanced back over to Shane to see him standing up from my bed and grabbing my suitcase. He chucked it up onto the bed, smirking when I yelped a little as it crushed my legs with the heavy wheels on the bottom.

"Shane-"

"I know you don't think she cares, but you're wrong. Liam has been asking me non-stop for weeks how you are, do you know what that means? That means Karma wants to know how you are, she's just getting Liam to do her reporting for her seen as you're pushing her away with every single ounce of strength you have."

"Stop it, Shane," I barked as I watched him opening drawers and pulling out random pieces of clothing before throwing them into the suitcase. I attempted to empty the suitcase each time he filled it but gave up when I eventually realised I lacked the power to keep up with him. I lay and watched as he raided by wardrobe, grabbing anything that he deemed suitable. He would occasionally holler for Lauren to give her opinion on the outfit but gave up on that when he realised that Lauren hated every piece of clothing I owned. I watched as he struggled with suitcase to zip it up once he had shoved an insane amount of clothing into it, dropping his ass onto it and dragging the zip whilst arguing with Lauren in the process about being late.

At some point my eyes must have closed and my body drifted off the sleep and it wasn't until my eyes were snapping open, the burning worse than they were before, with the cover being dragged away from my entire body that I noticed the sound of the shower in the background.

"Right, that's it. Get the fuck up." My hands were absentmindedly searching for the covers that Shane had already thrown to floor, my mind registering for the first time that I was only wearing underwear. I struggled against Shane as he dragged me towards the shower, and if I hadn't of been so focused on digging my heels into the floor and searching for anything to hold on to, I would have commented on my surprise in how strong he actually was.

"Get the fuck off, I'm not going. Shane, what the hell-"

"Amy fucking Raudenfeld, you are going to North Carolina and that's fucking it. You agreed to go on this trip and I am not going without you, so you are going to peel yourself out of the very little clothing you have on right now and you are going to get in the shower in a weak attempt to wash away some of the tequila that is literally dripping from your pores. I am going to finish attempting to zip up your suitcase, hopefully Lauren sitting on the bastard should do the job, and once you're out we're going to Karma's house and you're going to hold your head high and look her in the God damn eye because you are still Amy. You may be a weak and pathetic version of the Amy that I know right now, but for fuck sake Amy, get your shit together and go and show that girl that the she made a mistake when she didn't say I love you too."

"Technically she did tell me she loved me, just not in the same way." I mumbled as I felt my feet padding onto the cool surface of the bathroom floor, one that I slept on far too many times in the past three weeks. I turned round to see Shane shooting me a fierce glare before he shoved a towel into my arms and nodded towards the shower.

"Do not make me physically put you in that shower, Amy. My perfect gay eyes have already been burnt enough over the past weeks with you, I draw the line at holding your hair back while you're being sick."

….

"Why do you need so many clothes if you're going to Science Camp? I thought kids who were into things like that just wore the same things for 5 days before turning it inside out and then wearing it for another 5. Its science camp, it's not like you're going to find some super-hot boy, sweetheart," Bruce spoke to Lauren as he dragged both of her substantial suitcase towards Shane's car that was parked at a questionable angle in front of my house.

"Science Camp?" I spoke, my brows furrowing before I felt my arm being linked viciously and Lauren appearing at my side as she dragged me over to the only plant pot that my mother graced our front garden with. I glanced at the completely dead flowers that were scattered in the pot, somewhat resembling my life at the minute, before looking back to Lauren when she smacked her hand across my arm. "What?" I snapped, trying to shove her back but failing when my shaking hands end up missing her as she moved.

"I know your pathetic heart is broken and all that other shit, but please try and be less stupid. We had to tell my dad and your mom that we were going to Science Camp because there is no way they would have ever let us go to Liam's beach house for the whole summer."

"So we're lying to them about the whole thing? Why didn't anyone tell me we were lying to them?" I asked as I looked over Lauren's shoulder to see Shane now struggling with shutting the boot of his car thanks to the two suitcases from Lauren that were the size of a small human being. I watched as he began to squeal at Bruce in his high pitched voice that always graced us whenever he became somewhat stressed.

"Because you've been filled up on so much vodka for the past three weeks that you probably would have thought we were actually at Science Camp." Lauren spoke, a small pout forming on my lips as I fixed my sunglasses and shrugged my shoulders a little, mumbling that she was being dramatic yet again. "Seriously Amy, I am saying this from the kindest place in my heart, you need to get your shit together and forget about Karma. Next time her name pops into your head, think about your liver instead of alcohol and you might take a healthier approach when it comes to wallowing in your self-pity."

I opened my mouth to respond but by the time my weary brain had managed to even form a word, Lauren was walking away from me and screaming across the front garden at Shane who had now gone from having a small panic attack to hauling Lauren's suitcases out of the boot and making her choose between them. After twenty minutes of laying on the grass and listening to Lauren cry about how Shane was making her re-enact Sophie's Choice, we were finally going through the tedious remedy of the kisses and cuddles from my mom. As I hugged her I clenched my jaw to hold down the sick as she whispered to me that she had slipped some condoms into my suitcase just in case I found someone 'stimulating' at Science Camp and want to have a change from my whole gay thing. I nodded my head slowly as I pulled away, the word thank you seeming like the appropriate thing to say but also at the same time like a complete wrong thing to say. I climbed into the car and flopped into the front seat as I watched Shane embrace my mother in a way that even brought a blush to her experienced cheeks, as well as Lauren cuddling Bruce as though she was five years old and leaving for school. It all made me very nauseous as I pushed my glasses up my nose, pulled my hood over my head, despite it being scorching hot outside, and slouched down in my seat.

"You look a gangster who is about to steal my car," Shane spoke as he climbed in next to me and stretched over to pull my hood down, ripping half of my hair out in the process. I gritted my teeth to stop from climbing into the back and strangling Lauren when she climbed into the car and deliberately slammed the door, letting out a small 'oops' when I practically growled at her. As the car began to move I felt the sickening twist of my stomach as we began to drive the small distance I had been so used to walking, so much that it felt weird that I hadn't been in this direction in three weeks. For years, this had been my walk for roughly four nights a week, Karma walking to my house the other three. This was the first time ever I had wished that the drive would be longer, that Shane would tell me there had been an accident and that there was no possible way of getting to Karma's house, or even that we had a flat tyre and we wouldn't be moving for a while until someone who knew the slightest about cars could come and save us. But none of that was happening, and I glanced out of the window to see the deserted house which had mine and Karma's childhood hideout in before turning the corner to see Karma's house.

…

I don't know what I was expecting to feel when I saw her. Maybe I was expecting to feel the stabbing pain I had felt for the past three weeks, or to cry, or to want to run straight over to her and hug her. Or kiss her. But instead I felt this strange mixture of them all as Shane pulled the car up front of her house, behind Liam's car that was currently being filled up with suitcases. I was thankful that his back was to us as we pulled up and the as soon as Shane got out of the car he was distracted away from me. Away from the girl who told his girlfriend that she was in love with her. When I pulled my eyes away from Liam and Shane, they fell straight upon another pair of eyes that were locked onto mine from the far end of the car in front. She was stood speaking to another girl I had never seen before, her attention totally on me and not the girl who was rambling. It was in that moment that I felt the overpowering stabbing pain mix with my shortness of breath from the tears that stinging my eyes and the lump forming in my throat, as well as the overriding sense that I should hide in the car and never get out. It wasn't until my door was being opened and Lauren was stood looking down at me that my eyes snapped away from Karma.

"Hiding in the car is not showing Karma that you are a badass bitch not to be messed with. Move your ass right now," Lauren snapped at me, grabbing my arm like she had in the garden and dragging me from the car faster than my legs were prepared to work. I stumbled into her and listened as she moaned about me still stinking of alcohol despite my shower, shoving me off once I was out of the car.

"Amy!" My head moved to the side to see past the enormous head that was Lauren, only to feel all the blood drain from my face when I saw Karma's parents stood at her front door waving for me to come over to them. A shaky smile came to my face as I gestured that I would be over in a minute, looking back at Lauren with what I can only assume was fear in my eyes.

"Help me. Save me. Do something for me. I can't speak to them, I'll crack. They'll say one thing and I'll be all 'oh by the way I'm in love with your daughter and I told her a couple of weeks back but she told me she didn't love me because she is in love with Liam Booker, who's beach house we just happen to be spending the entire summer at despite the fact I have managed to avoid both up until this moment."

"So just don't say that," Lauren said plainly before flicking her hair off her shoulder like some bitchy popular girl from a movie and walking away. I followed her with a glare only to feel it slip away when my eyes landed on Karma yet again, hers watching me as well as I swallowed thickly and walked over to her parents. I barely had time to say anything before I was being dragged into a hug that was so tight I was worried for my ribs, patting them on the back the way I would touch a cat before moving back and poking at my ribs to ensure that were all still intact.

"Amy, where have you been? We haven't seen you around here in weeks. Is that because of your break up with Karma?" Molly Ashcroft spoke as she geld my shoulders, looking me over once and letting a small grimace appear on her face. I concluded it was either because of my trashy appearance, or she could smell the tequila. Or maybe the confused look that was washing over my features.

"My what?" I asked after a second, glancing over my shoulder when I heard the sound of car doors being slammer. I felt my stomach plummet once more when Karma was walking away from the girl who she had been previously speaking to and was making her way towards me. Holy. Fucking. Shit. She was coming here. I contemplated running before I had even gotten to answer from her mom, but she was still holding onto my shoulder and placing the back of her hand against my forehead to see whether I had a temperature.

"Your break up. I'm going to be honest, I was a little sad when I heard about you two breaking up," Her mom spoke, looking over my shoulder at what must have been Karma right behind me. I stood completely rigid, someone could have mistook me for a soldier with how straight I was in that second. "I was just speaking to Amy about how upset we were when you two couldn't work things out. Karma is dating this Liam boy now Amy, did you know that?"

"Yeah, I uhm- I heard something about that." I croaked out, wishing for the ground to give way and to swallow me up so bad that it would never spit be back out. I could actually smell her perfume. It baffled me how I could pour a bottle of perfume on myself and never be able to smell it, yet here Karma was behind me and I could get faint hints of it over and over. I felt the tension grow thicker and thicker as her mom stood there and smiled at me. All I could do was smile back at her like some crazy person who needed help. I didn't want to move in case I bumped into Karma, or worse, she tried to speak to me.

"Are you feeling okay, sweetheart? You don't look the best," Karma's mother spoke as she put her hand on my forehead once more. I opened my mouth to speak but was cut off when Karma moved into sight, something in her eyes that looked like concern. I ignored it, I didn't need to see that. "You look like someone who's been out drinking all night," Molly laughed to herself, a small breath of air leaving my mouth and what looked like an awkward smile appearing on Karma's face. I wondered how much she knew about me. Whether Shane had gone in details when answering these supposed questions that had been asked about me over the weeks, or maybe Shane was really lying and she hadn't asked any questions.

"I'm sure I'll be fine, I might just go and take something. I think I packed some Advil in my bag. I'll be right back." I swung round on my heel with the one main objective of getting away from this situation faster than the sick that rising in my throat. All of that slipped from my mind when I heard my name coming from Karma's mouth. I wanted to freeze, my body was screaming at me to turn around and look at her or do something, but instead I kept on walking. I wanted to look back to see whether she looked hurt, or whether she was angry, or whether she really said my name. Maybe I was just going crazy. There was a very high chance after three weeks spent overanalysing everything and drinking rivers of tequila, that I couldn't in fact have gone crazy. _Very high chance._

"Amy," I spun around when the sound of Liam behind me distracted me from my pathetic searching for Advil that I knew Shane hadn't shoved in my bag when he was looting my bedroom. I forced a smile onto my face, praying that he wasn't here to strangle me for confessing my love for Karma. Would he really shout at me about it in front of everyone? Instead I watched as he waved the girl that Karma had been speaking to earlier over. I watched as she walked over from the front of Karma's house, Shane bouncing along beside her and making sign language to me that made my brain hurt when I tried to work it out. "Amy, this is Reagan, a family friend. I invited her to come for the summer and just thought I would introduce you two."

"Hi, I'm Amy I-"

"Holy shit, Shrimp Girl." The girl, Reagan, across from me spoke as she stretched her hand out to shake mine that was now falling limp at the mention of the name. I stretched my head forward a little to see whether she was going to repeat the name, before the memory flashed into my head like a train smacking right into me. Holy fucking shit. My mouth bobbed up and down as she flashed me a smirk, a smirk that caused another barricade of memories to flutter back into my head. _Holy fucking shit._ I glanced to Shane who was now smiling at me intrigued with his face lit up at the excitement of possible gossip and drama. I struggled to swallow as I looked back to Reagan, trying to ignore the blur of red hair that was appearing behind her shoulder.

"Do you two know each other?" Liam and Shane asked at the same time. I opened my mouth to answer but was cut off by the smooth laugh that escaped from the girl in front of me.

"I met her the other night at a bar, you know that new one called Shrimp Bar? We were both pretty drunk, the memories are a little hazy but I remember you." She said to me, a grin on her face before she turned to look at Liam, who was looking at Karma, because Karma was looking at me. It dawned on me in that second that I was suddenly dizzy, dizzy to the extent were I moved backwards until my legs hit the car and I was practically sat in the boot. I ignored the sound of laughing, which I was certain was Shane because no one else in this situation wanted to laugh. Apart from Reagan who was still smirking at me.

"Do you remember that night, Amy?" Shane asked, his voice covered in humour and smugness as he laughed after his comment. I cleared my throat and nodded, stuttering out that I remembered it and mumbling something about the night being really fun whilst trying to dig up more memories whilst I spoke. I racked my brain for a better memory, something better than me pressed up against a toilet cubicle in a dingy bar with Reagan's tongue in my mouth and my hands moving anywhere they could. That's all that was flashing through my head and when I looked back up to the group it was as though they had seen straight into my head, with a smirk on both Shane and Reagan's face, Liam stood awkwardly staring at his shoes and Karma spinning to walk away.

"Of course I remember," I said quickly to clear the tension, pushing myself up and turning to throw clothes back into my suitcase that had fallen out when I had been digging for medications that was needed now more than ever, feeling the heat rising on my face when a pack on condoms fell into my hand. "There are some parts that are a little hazy but I remember most. I remember a lot of tequila. And dancing, there was dancing right?"

"I'm pretty sure when I first walked in, you were dancing on a table."

"We should probably leave, we have to get all the way to Shreveport today and you guys were already late." Karma spoke as she reappeared to the small group that had gathered around me to see me slowly fall further into my pool of embarrassment that had filled up over the past three weeks.

…

"It's my car, I get to pick the fucking music. If you you're so interested in the music you should have offered to drive."

The position in which I was sprawled out across the backseats of Shane's car was somewhat shameful, but I didn't care as I rolled my head to the side to vaguely see Shane's hand smacking at Lauren's as she fiddled with the radio. I had listened to them bicker and moan at each other like a married couple for what felt like several painful hours. That coupled with the horrific driving that Shane displayed had led to my stomach swirling uncontrollably. It felt like a small tornado was taking place within me as the car continued to swing in directions that I was almost positive were not safe. I contemplated forcing him to pull over and make Lauren drive, because at this current time my sensitive stomach would much prefer her snail pace driving compared to the roller coaster I was currently rolling about in.

I hadn't moved from my lying position since leaving Karma's house, pushing my headphone into my ears as far as they would go, despite me not actually playing any music due to my headache, but choosing to put them anyway to stop the badgering questions from Shane who was eager to gain further knowledge of my 'rendezvous' with Reagan. I felt rather mixed views on the presence of Reagan on this trip. On one hand I had managed to delve further into my pathetic memory and could now recall some parts of conversation that we had. I remembered how we shouted over the music about her passion for music and how she wanted to move to New York, whilst I whined about my life that was sinking down a drain. Despite me knowing very little about Reagan apart from her interest in music and that she was a top notch kisser, I didn't mind having her on the trip. She gave me a strange sense of security already. Maybe it was because I wanted to get to know her a little better, or maybe it was because she was the only one here who wasn't painfully aware of my love confession to Karma.

Reagan didn't know about the past three weeks of drinking, she only knew about one night, and on that one night she had actually helped. She had wiped Karma from my head for an entire night and the kissing in the toilet was somewhat productive, but I doubted that Reagan could wipe Karma from an entire summer. All of this made me think that Reagan was a valuable addition to our exploring team, however on the other my mind was screaming at me that God was definitely screwing with me. These past three weeks were something I wanted to forget, yet Liam Booker just happened to be friends with a permanent reminder that was now in another car on her way to this fancy beach house that nobody had actually seen yet.

I wanted to cry. I wanted to wallow in my self-pity for a little longer in the backseat of Shane's dusty car, but that was quickly brought to an end when I felt the car moving onto a surface that made the rollercoaster feeling from before feel like a small wave compared to this tsunami. I bounced up and down in the back seat like I was on a small trampoline as I listened to the tyres move across something that sounded like gravel. I tried to lift my head up to see where we were, catching a glimpse of the sign for a gas station as well as breakfast diner. I groaned when I felt the car coming to a stop. I wanted to protest and tell them I refused to leave the car because this wasn't the deal. The deal was to get all the way to Shreveport today, a solid five and a half hours of driving. But before I had a chance to protest the buzzing of the car stopped as Shane turned off the engine and his head came into sight as he turned around in the car.

"_Shrimp girl_, get your ass out of my car. We need to get directions, and we might as well get breakfast while we're here." I groaned as I pushed myself up, flinching at the banging of the car door that made the pain behind my eyes sear. I glanced out of the window to see something from a movie, half expecting a tumbleweed to blow into vision at any point. We were definitely still in Texas, and it made me want to scratch my eyes out with how slowly time was dragging by. I huffed pathetically as I fell back down on the seat, deciding to get an hours sleep rather than food that would only swirl in my unsettled stomach for half an hour before wanting out. I barely had my eyes closed for a second when there was tapping at the window next to my head, my eyes peaking open to see Reagan opening the door and letting the hot, sticky air of Texas into the car.

"What are you doing?" She asked, a small laugh in her voice when I groaned and rolled over onto my stomach, only to regret it seconds later when the swirling turned into vicious lurching that made my heart thump in my chest. I was officially never drinking again. What the hell did I drink last night? I pushed the thought to the side as I pulled myself off the scratchy seats of the car, practically falling out of the door and feeling Reagan's hands steady me.

"Where the hell are we?" I asked after a second, waiting for the air to tame my stomach and stop the sweating that was now burning over my skin, only for it to worsen when I felt the heat. I leant against the car and looked around the deserted place we were, glancing at the empty road we had just driven down.

"Somewhere called Speegleville. We've only been driving for about an hour and a half, but Liam said he needed to pull over to get the satnav to work and wanted food as well."

"Great. This is just great." I moaned as I leant forward, placing my hands on my knees as I tried to supress the bubbling of my stomach which was only becoming more uncontrollable. I pushed myself off the car and turned in the direction of the diner, only to have a smell of food hit me like a wall. As soon as I breathed in the smell I knew I was screwed, feeling the sick that had been clawing at me climb my throat in seconds. I emptied the contents of my stomach, which was very little for the surprising amount of vomit I was currently bringing up. I wanted to run away in that second, to take off straight across what appeared to be a desert and never come back. It only made it worse when I felt my hair being pulled back from my face and circlers being rubbed on my back. I felt myself heave a little when my body clearly wanted to continue being sick but my stomach was refusing to offer it anything else, thankful when the retching stopped after a second and I managed to raise myself from the hunched position. It was only then that I felt like more sick was going to come up when I took in the sight of Karma stood right next to me, holding my hair back.

She was so close I could smell her perfume again, every single time she moved it would waft towards me and drown out the smell coming from the diner. I felt completely frozen as I looked at her, taking in her sad smile as she pushed my hair back from my face and placed her hand on my forehead, the exact same way her mom had earlier. My head was screaming at me to walk away, to pretend none of this was happening and just head for the diner. I hadn't been this close to her in weeks and it was making me feel dizzy. I wanted to scream into the open air at how pathetic I was. I had ignored her for weeks, avoided her every single time I saw her and drank until I couldn't remember her, yet here I was feeling my heart clench so hard that I knew it would take more than tequila to push Karma from my head. Running from her wasn't working, yet that was all I knew.

When she stretched her hand forward to tuck my hair behind me ear my body finally kicked into gear, moving before my brain even told it to and stepping back before she could touch me. The sad smile that was on her face was now completely replaced with just sadness, straight up plain sadness that made me wanted to reach into my chest and rip my heart out. _Things would be so much easier if she loved me._ I opened my mouth to say something, anything to break the silence that was being overlooked by Reagan who was still stood by the car, but my head wasn't coming up with anything.

"Amy," Karma spoke after a second, her voice coming out hoarse as though she was about to cry. It felt like a small knife was being stuck in between my ribs. "Amy, please don't be like this- please don't keep pushing me away."

"I'm not." I said weakly. My head snorted at me how pitiful that lie was.

"I haven't seen you for weeks, you've been gone. You've just disappeared Amy, you're pushing me away." Karma spoke, she stepped forward a little but not as close as she was last time. I glanced over her shoulder to see Reagan who was now looking at her shoes, clearly trying to pretend she wasn't listening to everything we said.

"Talking works both ways. You haven't spoken to me either," I shrugged, watching as Karma's mouth fell open a little. I think the comment hurt a little, but I pushed the stabbing pain to the side when my head scream at me that she deserved a little hurt. Did she deserve to be hurt a little? I had told her I loved her, and she hadn't spoken to me in weeks. I swallowed thickly, my throat feeling rough and scratchy and the taste of sick making a shiver go down my spine.

"I thought you would need some time. I thought you would want to think some things through and have some time away from me." Karma spoke, her shoulders now shrugging as she chewed on her bottom lip, driving me slowly insane and forcing me to look anywhere else but her face. I noticed the rest of the group now walking out of the diner with coffees and heading for the cars. My attention was snapped back when I felt Karma's hand wrap around my arm, pulling at it a little to get my attention.

"Time isn't what I need, Karma." I said weakly, watching as the tiny smile that had been forced onto her face fade and be replace by tears filling her eyes. They were tears I didn't want to see. They weren't tears because she missed me, or because she wanted to be with me. These were tears of change. Karma hates change, and me telling her that I was in love with her had caused so much chance that she couldn't handle it now. I dragged my eyes away from her, knowing that if I saw any of those tears fall I wouldn't be able to stop myself from wiping them and hugging her into me. Karma was a weird addiction that I now needed to live without. I was thankful when Lauren appeared at my side, scowling at Karma who had turned to wipe her tears before Lauren saw them.

"Amy, we need to get going. Fucking idiot Shane drove in the wrong direction and now we need to drive for another six hours just to get to Shreveport. Let's go." Lauren began to walk over to the sound of car doors being slammed, I began to follow her until I heard my name being croaked out.

"I know that nothing I say is really going to help any of this, but I do need you in my life Amy. I don't care whether I'm being selfish by saying I need you to be my friend when you're going through this, but I do. I need you to be my friend, Ames. So please stop pushing me away, please."

It sounded like she was pleading and I was scared to turn around because I could hear the tears in her voice, I could hear the shaking and cracking that came out as she spoke. Clenching of my jaw or fist did nothing to stop the tears the now pooled in my ears, burning the tiredness and tequila away and instead replacing them with pain. Because that's what this was, pain. Everything hurt. And I didn't know whether I hurt because I had Karma, or whether I hurt because I didn't have Karma. But for now I couldn't remember a time when I didn't have Karma, and I was scared to think that there will be a time when I don't have her. I was in love with her, and that hurt like a real fucking bitch, but love can be squashed down until it's a tiny little box that I can hide in the back of my brain.

"Okay." I said softly as I looked over my shoulder a little, watching as Karma let out a soft sigh before I turned and headed straight for the car. Ignoring Shane and Lauren as soon as I climbed in, resuming my position from before and turning my music on as loud as it would go, headache be damned.


	2. The New Normal

I stood under the trickle of water that fell from the mould covered shower heard, fiddling with the knobs on the wall in attempt to increase the pathetic amount of water that was currently falling onto my head. As I felt the water increase I also felt the temperature rising, feeling it scald my skin in a strangely satisfying way. My entire body ached from the drive and the first thing I had headed for after struggling to open the sticky door of the room was the shower. I had an impulsive need to wash away the day, feeling like every time I breathed the whole past three weeks were weighing down on my chest. I had wanted a bath, but when I had taken in the sight of what appeared to be multiple different fungi growing at the far end of the tub, I settled for a shower. The image of Karma stood in the parking lot of the diner early today flashed into my head, as well as the sound of her asking me to stop pushing her away. When I thought of it I played it back in my head like she was pleading with me, but I knew that was just my fuzzy brain trying to make feel better. _Trying to make feel more loved._

I closed my eyes as I felt the water burning at my scalp, feeling it almost tingle with pain, but I pushed through the irritancy as I stretched for the tiny bottle of shampoo that was rested on the side of the tub. It astonished me that a motel as such had the capabilities of leaving miniature sized bottles of shampoo and conditioner at the side of the shower, but failed in the small task of fixing the air conditioning in the room that I, Shane, Lauren and Reagan had all been squeezed into. Unlike Liam, we didn't have the money to throw at hotel rooms on a trip that had only been planned two weeks ago, which therefore meant I stood by and painfully watched as Liam paid for the most expensive room in the motel, only better than ours due to the working air conditioning, before pulling a giggling Karma into the room and shouting for us to be up early in the morning as he slammed the door closed. The whole ordeal had made my stomach churn in a painful way. Everything hurt yet again, and now I was stuck with the pain and no vodka to numb it. I didn't know why I was here, I didn't want to be here. I snorted to myself when I thought back to when Shane had asked me to come, wanting to kill him right now with just how wrong he was about everything.

…..

"_No way. No fucking way." I laughed as I pushed back from my seat and lifted the mug that was sat in front of me. I listened as Shane let out an exasperated groan, pushing back from his chair and following me over to the sink where I was stood pouring away the rest of my coffee. I watched as Shane appeared at the corner of my eyes, a huge fake smile plastered across his face._

"_Amy, _darling,_" He started, another snort leaving my mouth as I set the mug down and turned around so I was leaning against the counter, Shane moving to stand right in front of me, invading the personal space I had come to cherish. "Amy, you have to go. You can't do this. You can't ruin everyone else's plans just because your little heart has been broken by big mean Karma."_

"_Ruin everyone else's plans?" I laughed spitefully, stepping to the side to move away from Shane and glancing up to see Lauren stood like a bodyguard who was ready to body slam me if I took another move. I rolled my eyes as I looked between them, baffled by this entire situation._

"_Amy, if you don't go then Karma won't go, and if Karma won't go then Liam won't go, and if Liam doesn't go we're driving to North Carolina to sleep on the beach for the whole of summer because in case you weren't listening properly earlier on when I explained this magical trip to you, it's Liam's Parent's fucking beach house!"_

"_Shane, I'm not going. You can yell and scream and cry for all I care, I'm not putting myself through that." I shrugged my shoulders and carried on walking, shoving Lauren out of the way when she tried to step in front of me._

"_What about us? You've made us hold your hair back, wipe up your sick, deal with your broken heart for the past week and now you're just going to screw us over like this?" Lauren piped up as I made it to the bottom of the stairs, stopping my steps and swinging around when I felt a sharp stab of anger hit me._

"_Do not blackmail me," I snapped at them, Shane holding his hands up to say he was innocent before rolling his eyes in the direction of Lauren and telling her not to anger me. It irritated me that they now felt it was acceptable to talk about me when I was blatantly in front of me, having taken to the idea of moaning about me while I'm hungover because they know I'm too weak to snap at them. I let out a slow breath, quenching my anger as I looked to Lauren who was doing the same, "Lauren, why do you even care? You hate Shane, you don't like Karma, and I don't think you've ever spoken to Liam."_

"_Amy, it's North Carolina. It's the beach. It's the sun. It's a completely different state in which I will not spend the entire time listening to you cry about Karma fucking Ashcroft because I know you're too fucking scared to even speak to her, never mind cry about her _in front_ of her."_

"I don't care," I sighed, shaking my head when Shane threw himself down on the couch and screamed into the pillow. My head was beginning to pound and I just wanted to go to bed, turning and heading halfway up the stairs before I heard Shane's voice shout my name.

"_You know what Karma will think if you don't go, right? She'll think you're crazy. She'll think you're so obsessed with her that you can't be around her anymore, and then she'll start pushing _you_ away instead of you pushing _her_ away like you have been doing. If you don't go on this trip Amy, you'll never speak to her and you know it. And before you even realise, it'll be two years down the line and you'll be leaving for college with Karma just being a memory in your head. She'll be that best friend that you fell in love and then never spoke to again. Do you really want that to be how you and Karma end?"_

"_Nice," Lauren spoke to Shane, before encouraging him to keep going. For some reason my legs wouldn't keep moving. My head was screaming at me that this was bullshit, but for some reason it was still listening. Maybe it was because deep down I thought Shane had a point, it had been just over a week since I told Karma I loved her, and we hadn't spoken. Maybe she was already pushing me away. Maybe we never will speak again._

"_You love Karma, Amy. Don't be the stupid idiot who lets that love swallow up the friendship that caused it in the first place. Stop letting things between you two get worse. If you go on this trip she'll speak to you, you'll spend ten minutes talking it out and then it'll be like nothing ever changed. Before the love came along, you and Karma were best friends, don't ruin it."_

…..

My eyes were snapped open and away from the memory when I heard the bang of knocking at the door over the sound of the trickling water. I turned the knob on the wall, grabbing the towel that must have been designed for a six year old as it covered a pathetic amount of my body before clambering over the tub like a baby whale trying to get out of the ocean. I grumbled to myself about bloody Shane forgetting the key to the room, even when I had screamed at them not to forget it when he had stuck his head round the shower curtain and told me that they were going to get food, oblivious to my naked form stood right in front of him. I heard the knock on the door yet again, this time a little harder and few more added.

"One fucking minute." I snapped, dropping my towel and snatching at clothes from my suitcase. Pulling them onto my wet body was a struggle to say the least, but just as I managed to get my top to remove itself from its stuck position on my head I swung the door open to reveal Karma. I felt like someone had drained the blood from my body, sticking a straw into me and just letting it seep out as I took in the sight of her stood there in her pyjamas. I tried to focus my eyes on her head and not let them travel down to her legs that were clearly visible due to her _short _shorts. It made my stomach churn once more when I realised she would be in a bed next to Liam tonight dressed in that, but before I had a chance to swallow away the thought another one popped into my head, one that had been haunting me from the night I told her I loved her: _she's had sex with anyway, it's not like he hasn't seen her legs before._

"Did I interrupt you?" She asked after a second, a small chuckle coming from her mouth as she took in the sight of me. I coughed to clear my throat as I shook my head, my mouth completely dry. I watched as she stretched her hand out, her fingers scratching against my waist as she tugged at the bottom of my shirt and pulled it down over the rest of my hip that had been showing. I wanted to flash her a small thank you smile, but I wasn't grateful. I didn't appreciate the gesture, because really it had made my legs turn to a liquid form and my head begin to spin to the extent where I didn't know whether I could make it back over to the bed. Did she know that she had that effect on me? Was she now teasing me? I pushed the thoughts from my head when I felt her eyes burning into me, as though she could read my mind.

"Do you need something?" I asked, trying to keep the shake from my voice and instead realising that it probably came across harsh, especially on the back of our last conversation in which I had told her I wouldn't push her away. When I saw her smile falter a little I wanted to punch myself, hard. I flashed her a smile and stepped back, gesturing for her to enter the room and watching as she glanced around a little before entering, somewhat cautiously. It made me wonder whether she felt uncomfortable around me now, and that was when I was completely sure that Shane had been wrong. Karma and I may have spoken for ten minutes, but it hadn't helped. It hadn't made everything feel normal again, it had just dragged everything to the surface of the water that was drowning me.

"I just came to say…" Karma started, her voice trailing off a little as though she didn't know what she had come here to say. I rubbed my hair with the towel as a small distraction, keeping my eyes on the stained carpet rather than on Karma, or her legs for that matter. When her voice hadn't restarted for a good solid minute I looked up to see her nervously chewing on her nails, something she only ever did when she felt uncomfortable.

"Karma?" I spoke, her name rolling straight off my tongue, even though it felt like it burnt a little. I watched as she waited a few seconds before bounding into a barricade of speech that came out so fast I struggled to hear some of it.

"You know how much I hate change, so for a couple of minutes can I just act like nothing has changed? Can I just sit here and moan to my best friend about my boyfriend who is passed out asleep on the bed, hence the reason I came to see you. Can I just tell you about how I had to listen to Liam's crappy music all day, and you know how much bad music pisses me off. I mean, it was Coldplay, remember that time you made me listen to Coldplay for hours straight? So I had to-"

"Karma," I spoke quietly once I managed to get my mouth to catch up with my head. Her name came out so quiet that I was more than sure she didn't hear, but as soon as I said it her voice stopped dead in its tracks. I think she knew what I was going to say, because her eyes became red as though she was fighting back tears. Her rambling had been a cover for this inevitable conversation, an attempt to calm her nerves that had been bubbling away in her. I clenched my jaw as I looked away, swallowing down my own tears before looking back to see her staring at the carpet like I had been. "Karm, I can't do that. I can't pretend like nothing has changed when it to undoubtedly has."

"I'm so angry," She groaned after a second, flopping back on the bed and staring at the ceiling as she let out another groan of frustration into the room. I felt like the walls of the room were getting smaller and smaller as I stood there like a lost child in the middle. I didn't want to move to the bed in case I was too close to her, but at the same time I felt like it wouldn't be socially acceptable to just sprint out of the shrinking room.

"Angry about what?" I asked after a second, hearing a laugh escape Karma's mouth as she pushed herself back up to look at me. The tears were still there, but her face seemed more pissed off now that anything else, and it made my heart thump in my chest because I never thought about Karma being angry as an outcome to me loving her. Shocked? Yes. Freaked out? Maybe. Angry? No.

"I'm angry at you, Amy!" She shouted into the room, making me flinch a little and the tiny towel drop from my hand. "I'm angry at you, of _all_ people. And I know it makes me a complete bitch to be the angry one in this situation because you're the one who poured her heart out, but that's what makes me so fucking angry. Everyone pities you and sympathises for you, but what about me? Everything has changed for me too now. I have seemingly lost my best friend because she can't bear to be close to me even though I have done everything I can think of to make you feel comfortable around me. I've become the enemy to Shane and Lauren, and don't try and tell me I'm not because I know I am, and why? Because I was honest with you? They hate me because I told you the truth and didn't lead you on, because I tried to make things better instead of letting you push me away."

"Karma," I tried, but I breathed it more than anything else and I knew Karma ignored it as soon as she heard it.

"There, that's why I'm fucking angry… Because I am losing things too but nobody gives a shit because I'm not the one who people are supposed to care about in this situation, because _I'm_ the bad guy. If people heard me now they would probably call me so self centered by just even complaining like this, especially to you, but things fucking hurt me too. What-"

"Karma, stop!" I shouted into the room. My voice was on borderline screaming and I even shocked myself a little with how loud it came out. I watched as Karma's mouth clenched closed, her eyes burning into me now. "Yes, things are shitty for you too, but _do not_ sit there and try and tell me that you have done everything you could. I told you I loved you and you told me you had sex with Liam. I have spent the past three weeks in some shitty hole and you have tried your very best to avoid me in the same way I have been avoiding you. Even tonight for fuck sake, you came running here just because Liam was asleep? I am not some toy you can now play with when you're bored because you know that I will always be here. I'm not someone you can pick up and drop whenever you want. I love you Karma, I really do, and it hurts like a complete fucking bitch. So believe me, I am trying my very best to get over this, but do not sit there and try and tell me that you are an angel who has been painted as the devil, because you have avoided this moment just as much as I have."

"Get over me?" Karma laughed spitefully. My whole stomach was churning now and I was thankful that I hadn't eaten anything more today. I could feel tears pricking the back of my eyes, but they were tears of anger more than anything else, and maybe a slight hint of a disappointment. "Amy, have you really tried to get over me or is that just something you're saying to yourself to make yourself feel better when you spend six nights a week getting drunk. Yeah, I heard by the way about your new interest in tequila."

"Maybe if you hadn't of ignored me for three weeks I wouldn't have been like this, Karma. Maybe if you had spoken to me and reassured me that you weren't completely freaked out, I wouldn't have been have been such a fucking mess." I snapped at her, watching as she stood up from the bed and began to pace from her anger. She always paced whenever she got really angry, and I let my eyes follow her up and down the small room which meant my head looked like I was watching a tennis match across and four metre stretch.

"Stop fucking doing that! Stop acting like I am the bad guy here. I didn't know what to do, Amy. I didn't know what to say and I thought that saying nothing until I had something worked out would have been better than saying something that just made you feel worse. I'm here trying now, aren't I? I didn't see you making a move to speak to me at any point today, you practically ran away this morning when you were speaking to my mom. _I_ am the one who's trying here, not you. You're being selfish."

"Selfish?" I snapped, looking at her in such complete shock that someone could have knocked me over with a feather. I felt like the Karma I was stood in front of was completely different to any Karma I had known before. Gone was her understanding and careful ways, replaced by ignorance and anger. A small laugh of shock escaped from my mouth, seeming to only increase the anger of Karma. She also looked hurt though, as though I was now mocking her, and that made a pang of guilt resonate in the bottom of my stomach.

"Yes, selfish. You're not trying, at all. You're completely giving up because you think that people will support you no matter what, and because of that you're leaving me, Amy. You're pushing me away and making it look like I am the one pushing you away, and I'm not. I don't know whether deep down you really do think I am pushing you away, or whether it makes things easier for you to think I am, but I'm not. Please believe me Amy, I am _not_ pushing you away. You're shoving me away and you don't seem to care about the fact that the only outcome from pushing me away is that you might actually ruin our friendship."

"Ruin our friendship?" I laughed incredulously, stepping back a little when she stopped her pacing in front of me and stared at me with her eyes that I seemed to get lost in even when I wanted to murder her. I could feel the words of our friendship already being ruined hanging on the end of my tongue, but I didn't want to say them. I couldn't say them. If I said them I would regret them, because even my anger-filled-hazy-brain knew that wasn't true. Instead I turned on my heel and headed for the door like I had wanted to before, socially acceptable behaviour be damned, swinging it open only to be met by Shane, Lauren and Reagan all stood in the hallway looking at me as though they had been caught in the act of eavesdropping, mainly because they had. Shane sprung back from his position of having his ear pressed up against the wall, a wide grin appearing on his face.

"We got you a sandwich. Yay." Shane sang cheerily as he lifted the bag in his hand and let out a small cheer, whilst peering around me to look into the room. I wondered whether Karma had followed me to the door or whether she had flopped back down on to the bed, but I didn't wait to find out as I took off down the dusty corridors, desperately needing fresh air.

…..

"Why the hell are you up there?" I lifted my head off of the surface of Shane's car, looking down to see Reagan walking towards me with two bottles of water in her hand. I dropped my head back down onto the roof of the car, feeling the warmth from it despite the sunning having now set and the heat finally dipping below sizzling temperature. It had been half an hour since I had walked out from the room, and I was now wondering whether I could blame the heat for my anger. The more I played the argument over in my head, the more I realised Karma was right. In a strange way I had made her into a bad guy, I had put her on this weird double standard pedestal in which she was damned if she spoke to me and damned if she didn't.

I looked to my side when Reagan finally managed to fumble her way up onto the roof of Shane's car, dropping down next to me as I shuffled over a little to give her space to lie down. It was only once she was down that I realised how strange this entire situation was. If someone had told me a month ago I would be lay on the roof of a car in Louisiana with a girl I met in a bar a week ago, sulking about Karma who I had argued with just because I was angry she didn't love me back, I would have laughed.

"So, any particular reason you chose the roof a dirty car to hide out on?" Reagan asked after a second, dropping a bottle water onto my stomach and rolling her head to the side to look at me. I glanced at her quickly, but didn't roll my head because it would have left inches between our faces.

"Karma is scared of heights, and this was the highest place I could find in case she followed me. I'm trying to work out how long it will take me to walk back to Austin from here, I guessed around 5 days." I mumbled, pushing myself up to take a drink from the water bottle. I listened as Reagan just hummed, nodding her head and waiting in silence next to me as I sighed whilst playing with the label on the bottle. "I think I may have really fucked up," I spoke after a second, declaring it more to myself than to Reagan.

"How?"

"She was right, I have been making her into a bad guy. Lauren hates her, I think Shane only puts up with her because she is with Liam and I don't know what you think of her…" I stopped for a second, looking over my shoulder to see Reagan who was still lay down just shrug her shoulders as if to say she was okay, "I have been pushing her away and I didn't even think about her in any of this. I have been selfish, and I was too fucking stubborn to admit it when she actually said it. I was horrible, I put all of the blame on her, I made her feel like this was her fault."

"Amy, don't now paint yourself completely as the bad person just because you've finally realised Karma isn't. There's doesn't need to be someone to blame, just deal with the fact that the situation is shitty but it's fixable. From what I hear, you and Karma have been friends long enough to fix anything."

"But I don't know how to fix it. I don't know how to fix the awkward feeling I get whenever she is around, or the way I get this bubbling in my stomach whenever she is just near me. I don't know how to fix the way I feel, and that makes me so angry, which makes me yell at her because my head tells me it's her fault."

"Why do you love her?" Reagan asked a second, pushing herself up onto her elbow and arching her eyebrow when I turned round and frowned at her, "I'm being serious, what is it about her that you love?"

"I don't know." I mumbled, suddenly wanting to spree from my position on the car and run back to the room. I watched as Reagan smiled softly, pushing off from her elbows until she was sat up with her legs crossed and looking at me, her face closer than I wanted it to be and reminding me of the cramped toilet cubicle a week ago.

"I had this best friend that I fell in love with, you know. I told her I loved her just like you told Karma, but instead of her saying that she didn't love me that way, she went along with it and told me she loved me too. Of course she didn't love me, but I didn't realise this until it was six months later and I walked into a room to see her having sex with her ex-boyfriend. She broke me the way Karma broke you. The way you were last week when I met you, and I can imagine you've been like that for whole past three weeks, well that was how I was, except I was like that for _months_. None of that helped though, the only thing that actually made things better was when I realised why I actually loved her."

"Why?" I asked after a second, a grin appearing on Reagan's face. It seemed to be somewhat of a trademark grin and I was pretty sure she had had no trouble finding plenty of girls like me in those bars.

"I loved her because she was familiar, because she was all I knew. She was always there whenever I wanted to cry about my parents, she saw me at my worst in the mornings and she knew all of the things that I was too embarrassed to tell everyone else. I saw this as love, when really it was just friendship. The more I think about her, the more I realise I never loved her in that way either. I think, and don't get angry here because this is just what I think after seeing you with Karma for one day, but I think that's what this is. I think Karma is all you know, and you're in love with the consistency of it all."

I felt my mouth bob up and down like a small child who had been told Santa wasn't real. I felt a little laugh erupt from my lips before another one followed, Reagan's grin only widening as she lifted the bottle of water to her mouth and took a sip. As my laughter faded it turned into my head shaking and I watched as Reagan now frowned, the first frown I had seen grace her face.

"That's not what this is," I shrugged my shoulders when Reagan cocked her head to the side like she didn't believe me, ignoring the feeling that she was patronising me, "I'm serious, that's not what this is. Karma has always been there, but the way I feel hasn't. I love her, I know I do. I'm not some small kid with a crush who thinks that they are in love, I'm heart-stopping-sleep-wrecking-can't-breathe painfully in love with her."

"If it's so painful, why did you agree to come on this trip?" Reagan asked as she followed me off the roof of Shane's car, sliding across the paint and scratching it with the button on the back of my shorts which left a large faded line. I ran my hands through my hair as I looked at Reagan, noticing it was now completely dry.

"Because I'm the idiot who decided to follow my problem for 1,576 miles."

….

24 HOURS LATER

I flopped down on the bed that was marginally more comfortable than the one from last night, glancing around the hotel room which was of a far better standard than last night's purely based on the cool breeze of air conditioning that was blowing against my sweat and drying it on my skin. Today had been one of those days were I had done nothing yet still felt exhausted. We had been woken this morning by a sound that I could describe as someone trying to break the door down, my aching body removing itself from Reagan's hold that somehow managed to curl around me in the night and swinging the door open to a raging Liam Booker who was ready to dismember all of us due to the hour in which we had slept into. After another half an hour of Shane whining to Liam about how his behaviour was unacceptable, understandable due to the army-like manner in which Liam rallied us out of the room, we were shoved into Shane's car that could have sweltered someone to death with the heat of it.

We drove out of Shreveport with the windows down, feeling the hot air dry our sticky sweat while simultaneously causing us to sweat more. Reagan had been forced into the back of the car with me after Liam refused to even look at any of us due to his anger for running over schedule, however that didn't apply to Karma who had sheepishly stared at the floor throughout the entire ordeal and made certain of avoiding me in every aspect. I was somewhat thankful for it due to the tiny amount of sleep I had managed to squeeze in, deciding it was better to do my apologising and grovelling when I was in a better mood. The drive to Birmingham was completely uneventful as a result of Liam not even allowing us to stop for lunch. We had managed a small three minute stop when Shane had cried down the phone to Karma, pleading with her to make Liam let him stop for a piss, screaming through his almost tears about how this wasn't the army whilst threatening to ram our car into theirs.

When we finally arrived at the hotel in Birmingham I was ready to throw both Shane and Lauren out of the car whilst moving at a very high speed, or even let it drive into a wall with me in it to end the constant torture that I was experiencing with this trip. It baffled me how they could argue so much yet at the same time seemingly be each other's best friend. All I wanted to do was climb straight back into a bad in an air conditioned room, and as soon as I had the door open I had flopped down into the position I was currently in. I was on my way to a blissful sleep when Shane smacked down on the bed next to me, shoving himself in between me and Reagan who was sat reading a book.

"You two need to get ready, we're going out tonight. I refuse to live in this military conditions without alcohol… Maybe a few vodkas will cheer Liam the fuck up."

….

After listening to Shane and Liam argue for another fifteen minute about going out tonight, the entire time with me and Karma stood next to each other awkwardly watching them catfight, I was very much on board with the whole drinking idea. That was until Shane dragged us into the first gay bar he saw and in that moment I wanted to strangle every single ounce of breath from him as he shouted into my ear that I 'was welcome', before shimmying his way into the small mass of people. I had managed to hide away in a booth that Lauren had bullied people out of for most of the night, observing her scan her eyes over the cocktail list before ordering a _Leg Spreader_. I was dragged from my comfortable bubble by Shane and a small legion of lesbians who were eager to meet the Amy that Shane had spent the night talking about, dragged into the mass of people before I had a chance to object about both my personal space being invaded as well as my dignity as they pressed themselves up against me in ways that made me uncomfortable more than anything else.

"Don't you just love lesbians?" Shane shouted over the music at one point as he grinded up against one, knocking back the rest of the drink that was in his hand.

"Yeah, they're fucking precious," I snapped back at him, my eyes wandering behind me in an attempt to find either Lauren or Reagan to save me, instead landing upon Karma who was sat at the bar by herself. I felt a small buzz from the few drinks that I had knocked back earlier in an attempt to loosen myself which had taken the edge of nervousness away from talking to Karma, but at the same time I could feel my heart thumping as I pushed the girl who was pressing herself up against me off and made my way for Karma.

"Where's Liam?" I asked as I slid into the seat next to her, watching as she just shrugged her shoulders and looked around the bar behind me. Her eyes looked tired, like she hadn't slept well last night. I wondered whether it was because of our argument, but my non-wishful thinking head reminded me it would be the same thing as me, the fucking heat.

"Do you want another drink?" She asked after a second, a small smile tugging at her lips when I shook my head. Her smile was infectious and I felt myself smiling back at her, all of the anger from last night now mixing into guilt and shame. I watched as she swirled her drink around with the small red straw in it with her face showing no intention of drinking. Karma hated the taste of vodka, claiming it was like downing her bottle of perfume, yet Liam had ordered it for her at the start of the night and shoved it in front of her.

"Someone needs to carry Shane home," I mumbled as I nodded my head over my shoulder, glancing behind to now see Liam who was with Shane in the gaggle of girls. Karma's brows furrowed a little when her eyes fell upon on them. "They're all gay, you've got nothing to worry about," I reassured her, my heart hurting a little but my head telling me that was the right thing to say.

"Are you sure?" Karma asked softly, her voice hardly audible over the sound of the music. I followed her eyes over to where Reagan was at the booth with Lauren, frowning a little. When I turned my head back she had looked away, but I couldn't ignore the nagging in my head that was telling me Karma meant something else by that. Was she talking about me or Liam now?

"Karm," I started, coughing to clear my throat and hearing Karma's voice cut me off before I had a chance to carry on.

"Amy, I'm so sorry about last night. I was out of line by saying everything I did, especially to you. You completely have the right to be selfish, I should never have-"

"I don't have the right to be selfish Karm, you were right and I was just too stubborn to admit it. I have been being selfish, and I have been putting the blame on you when there is no blame to be placed, and it's not fair. I think I was angry as well, about being stuck on this trip and maybe a little about you not loving me back-"

"Amy, I do love you, just…" Karma's voice faded a little when I raised my hand to stop her from speaking, watching a sad smile tug at her lips. When she turned to face me I noticed her eyes were bloodshot from how tired she was.

"Please don't say just not like that," I spoke quickly, clenching my jaw to fight the tears that were threatening to make themselves known. "That doesn't give me the right to act the way I did- the way I have been acting. I haven't tried to speak to you over the past weeks either, so I don't know why I thought it was such an outrage for you not to speak to me. I'm sorry. From here on I promise to be your best friend again, the Amy who didn't get jealous over boyfriends and didn't scream at you in sweaty motel rooms. I won't make things any more uncomfortable than they already are and I'll keep working on the whole getting over you thing."

"From here on," Karma spoke softly as she moved further forward in her seat until she was perched on the edge and grabbing my hand, oblivious to the tingles that were spreading over my skin, "I promise not to speak about Liam to you. I know you say that things can be normal, but I'm not going to makes things worse for you just to keep up _normal_. I made everything worse by just not being there for you, so I promise that I'll be here for you from now on."

A small grin spread on my face before we were cut off by the sound of Shane yelling behind us, swinging round to see him shoving back a guy that was twice his size whilst supporting Liam who appeared to have blood streaming from his nose. I heard Karma curse before sliding off the chair and heading in the direction, a strange sense of familiarity sweeping over me. This was the new normal, Karma leaving me for Liam, and I needed to get used to that whether I liked it or not. 15 minutes later we were walking back to the hotel substantially impaired from when we had left. I walked with Reagan, holding Shane up in between us whilst listening to Liam ramble over and over to Karma about how he wasn't flirting with the guy's girlfriend and there was no need for him to punch him. I had to restrain Lauren from trying physically assault Shane because of her most likely having to drive the 12 hours to Duck tomorrow.

….

I lay in bed with my eyes closed but wide awake. I could hear Shane fumbling about in the tub trying to get more comfortable, having passed out in it and refusing to move from it. I opened my eyes and glanced to other twin bed next to me, seeing both Lauren and Reagan asleep. I don't know why I hadn't climbed into the bed with Reagan in tonight, I tried to tell myself that it wasn't anything to do with Karma's comment earlier on, but I knew deep down it was. My eyes were pulled from the bed and over to the door when I heard faint small knocks on it, preparing myself to be murdered as I slid out of bed and over to the door. When I opened it I was blinded for a second by the bright lights of the hallway, before taking in the sight of Karma who was stood in her pyjamas with dark circles under her eyes.

"I know this might be totally uncomfortable for you, so just tell me to go away if you want, but Liam won't stop throwing up so our entire rook stinks of sick and he gets really moody when he's drunk and I just don't want to sleep in there so I was wondering if I could maybe sleep in here… Only if it's okay with you."

"Of course it's okay with me." I said quietly as I stepped back and let her enter the room, closing the door quickly and surrounding us in darkness. I heard Karma gasp as she wacked her toe on the minefield of suitcases, wrapping my fingers around her wrist and tugging her around the suitcases behind me. It was only once I was lay in the bed with her next to me, my heart thumping so loud in my chest that I was sure she would be able to hear it, that I realised I may have made a mistake. _I may have pushed myself too far this time._

"Is this too weird for you? I can go if you want me to. I don't want to make you uncomfortable, and Liam might-"

"Karma, shut up." I mumbled after a second, hearing her snort a little before rolling over onto her side. Not one part of our bodies were touching, yet I felt like I was on fire. The longer we lay there, the slower my heart rate went. I breathed slowly, smelling her shampoo and perfume every single time, drifting me off to a deep sleep before I even realised that she had rolled her way over and was now resting her head on my shoulder. So this was the new normal, feeling every single thing tingle like something was wrong whenever I was around Karma, but also feeling nothing could be better.


	3. Clarity

I sat with my feet up on the dashboard and my head flopped to the side as I took in the sight of the blurred surroundings that whizzed past us. I relished in the feeling of not having my feet swatted down from the dashboard immediately by Shane's hands, even considering smudging mud across it just to make a point of what I had been doing while he wasn't present in the car. We had spent a solid hour this morning removing Shane's hungover body from the bath, ignoring his protests as he clung on to the tub pathetically while drunkenly moaning about it being the most comfortable place he had ever been in his entire life. It was in that moment I realised he was still drunk from the night before, watching as he began to cry and moaned about how he felt sick and didn't want to move for a few days. The situation only escalated when the sick that did eventually come was aimed in the direction of Lauren, her screams piercing through the room and wakening Reagan who evidently thought she was being murdered by the look on her face and the squeal that left her mouth as she wrapped the blanket round herself in a protective manner. When I left the bathroom to calm Reagan I noticed that Karma had slipped out of the room at some point between me waking up to hide in the toilet and the now empty bed. When I had woken this morning I had slid out of her tight grip to avoid either Shane, Lauren or even Liam from witnessing the cosy position in which I had spent the night. The first things that had hit me was a mixture of warmth and the smell of Karma's shampoo, rolling my head over to see her sleeping face only inches away from mine. The panic that shot me through me was enough to slide out of her grip and spend the next hour sat on the closed toilet seat next to Shane, waiting for a reasonable hour to wake the rest of the group. As Lauren detached Shane from his position in the bath, the circumstances only deteriorated when Liam appeared at our hotel door with a bruise on his eye the size of Africa. After another half an hour passed, filled with Karma shouting at Liam, who shouted at Shane, who shouted at Lauren, who shouted at everyone, I flopped back down on the bed, only to get back up when the smell of Karma floated around me, settling on the other bed next to Reagan who curled straight into me and managed to fall back asleep during the entire ordeal.

It was the early time of 9:00 by the time Lauren started screaming in a high pitch voice that impaled through everyone's brain, hungover or not. The movements of both Shane and Liam significantly increased when she threatened to drive herself to North Carolina and leave them to stew in their own sick for the next couple of days. Both of them managed to drag themselves out of the hotel and into the backseat of Liam's car, becoming dead to the world before we had even managed to work out who was driving. After Lauren refused to drive them, Reagan who had spent the whole discussion struggling with the suitcases was forced into Liam's car, already permeated with the smell of beer that was coming from both of their unwashed bodies.

The next four hours were filled with Lauren venting about how they were 'inconsiderate bastards' for getting so completely hammered, especially on the night before the twelve hour drive. I spent most of her rambling ignoring the stab of hunger in my stomach that was being swallowed down due to Lauren refusing to stop the car for anything, even going as far as to tell me to stick my ass out of the window and piss into the open air for all she cared as we sped through Georgia in a record amount of time. The heat of the car was ridiculously high, making me fade in and out of sleep and completely knock Karma out on the back seat, although I was 90% sure that was down to Lauren's rants earlier. When the thought of Karma popped into my head I couldn't fight the involuntary way in which my eyes shot up to the rear-view mirror and took in the sight of her curled up in the exact same position she had been the last time I checked.

"Stop it, Amy." My eyes moved down from the mirror and over to Lauren who was still focused on the road ahead, yet there was purse of her lips that reminded me so much of my mother.

"Stop what?" I muttered harmlessly.

"Stop looking at her like that," Lauren started, cutting me off before I could ask the next question in my fake innocent voice, "Like some sad puppy who needs their mom to wake up so they can get their milk fix." Lauren spoke harshly, but when she turned her head to the side a little to look at me quickly I noticed a small smile tugging at the sides of her lips.

"I wasn't-"

"I saw her in your bed last night." Lauren cut through me again, this time the words dropping from my lips as well as the small smile from Lauren's. She turned to look at me again when I hadn't spoken for a couple of seconds, an arch of her eyebrow telling me she had caught me in the act. My brain was now screaming at me for believing that nobody would find out about my bunk buddy last night. I shrugged my shoulder at her, pretending that I didn't care about her seeing.

"Oh," Was all I could manage after a minute or so, hearing a snort leave Lauren's lips and lighten the tone that had become very heavy for a second. I watched as she glanced in the mirror to look at Karma, my annoyingly compulsory eyes following after her. I sat and waited for the inevitable wrath of Lauren now that I had communicated in a loving way with the dreaded and forbidden Karma.

"I'm not going to yell at you," Lauren spoke as if she had read my mind, "I just think you're being an idiot. I was also a little confused, I'm not going to lie. One night you're screaming at each other about being selfish and the next you're so tightly squeezed together that I'm surprised you both didn't melt from the heat."

"We talked." I shrugged my shoulders and heard a small laugh leaving Lauren once more, and in that moment I felt about 3 foot tall when she turned and looked at me with eyes that were filled with disbelief. Her eyes were dragging thoughts that my brain that I had pushing aside and ignoring. I shook them away for a second only to hear Lauren voice them.

"I get it now, you talk things though so that must mean that you being in love with her and her having a boyfriend doesn't matter anymore, _right_?" Lauren spoke, her voice laced in sarcasm and making my empty stomach churn. "Amy, she is _with_ Liam. And yes, that may hurt you like a real bitch, and maybe because it hurts so much you seem to be perfectly fine with ignoring that factor, but that's the harsh truth. She didn't just end up with him, she _chose_ him. You can't spend nights in each other's bed because you two aren't just regular best friends anymore."

"We agreed that we would act like we always have, that nothing would change and-"

"-Amy, that's bullshit and you know it." Lauren snapped at me, her voice a little angrier now as it cut me off. I felt a strange mixture of feelings inside of me. "I don't know whether you're ignorant or just naïve. I hope for your sake it's the former, because that can be changed, naivety isn't easily fixed." I wanted to punch Lauren right now because I felt like she would never be able to understand and would never be able to see that maybe there is a way of it being normal again, but at the same time I felt like I was about to cry on her shoulder with how true everything she was saying was.

"I had to do something, Lauren, I can't just sit here and never speak to her because I fell in love with her. You and Shane both told me to come on this trip to fix everything, so that's what I'm doing. I can't fix things if I spend the entire time ignoring her."

"There's fixing things and there's sleeping curled up together. When you go on a diet you don't put a bar of chocolate in front of your eyes every hour of the day, because that's torture. You eat the lettuce and the carrots because you know that in the long run the tasteless, boring, but very useful, things make the difference. Maybe you should try eating the carrot for once rather than the chocolate."

"Lauren, stop speaking in fucking metaphors." I snapped at her, turning in my seat and wishing she would stop speaking about food because of the dull hungry ache in the pit of my stomach.

"Karma is chocolate. Reagan is a carrot. _You_ are an idiot," Lauren sighed as she ran her hands through her hair and glanced at her phone when it began to ring, ignoring the vibrating. "Maybe if you tried eating the carrot, she'll become chocolate."

"Reagan isn't a piece of meat, Lauren. I can't just swap over to her because Karma won't love me back."

"I'm not saying you have to swap over to her, I'm just saying she is a great distraction and someone fun on this trip. You don't really think that Liam invited Reagan just because he wanted to bring another friend do you? She's here for you, Amy. Liam invited her because she is his shield between you and Karma. She's here for you, whether you like it or not, and I think you might actually really like her if you gave her a chance… If you got out of the chocolate bubble, you'll realise that the carrot is the much better, and healthier, choice."

I opened my mouth to speak but was cut off by Lauren's phone vibrating through the car. As I listened to her bark down the phone at what sounded like Liam, I glanced over my shoulder to see Karma who was still asleep. Her hair had now fallen across her face like a curtain, but through that I could see the small smile on her lips that always appeared whenever she was sleeping.

"Those thoughtless bastards need to be fed." She snapped as swung the car across the lane in a driving manner that I'm sure nearly put me on my death bed. When I looked in the mirror Karma was now awake, her eyes wide with panic at the manic driving Lauren was now doing as she headed for the Denny's in front of us.

…..

It was ten o'clock by the time Lauren was driving down the long driveway that led to a house that was so close to the sea I was pretty sure if I big wave came it would knock the entire thing down. The rest of the drive had been filled by me and Karma playing _I__Spy_, after Lauren refused to take part because she was insanely competitive and she concluded that her driving whilst playing would end with all our lives going up in flames. Lauren had spent the entire lunch in Denny's lecturing Shane and Liam about alcohol awareness, using me as an example of how wrong things can go. I wanted to snap, but instead I just stared into my mug of coffee and avoided eye contact with Karma when Lauren raised the topic of finding me asleep in the garden after a long night that I cannot remember in the slightest. I was thankful the distraction that Reagan offered when stretched her hands out and offered them up for a game of _slaps_.

When the car came to a stop outside the house I watched as even Lauren couldn't hide the impressed look on her usual smug face, observing as she headed straight for the front door despite the other car having not arrived yet. As Lauren tackled with a locked door I walked round to the side of the car in which Karma was currently pressed up against asleep, opening the door and moving my arm to catch her a little when she fell into the empty space.

"Karma," I spoke softly, watching as she scrunched her nose up and tried to roll over to get away from the loud noise of my voice, only to be stopped by the seatbelt cutting into her. I couldn't fight my smile, deciding to bite it with my lip to stop it from widening anymore as I stretched my hand forward to push her hair off her face and say her name once more.

"What?" She groaned like a small child, her hand snatching mine and instead of shoving it away she pulled it against herself as though my hand was a tiny blanket. The grin that I had been repressing earlier now spread completely across my face as I laughed a little, before looking through the other window to see Reagan pulling into the driveway.

"Karm, we're here. Wake up." I watched as her eyes fluttered open a little more, helped along the way by Lauren who was screeching with excitement as Reagan pulled to a stop just in front of our car. When Karma's eyes opened a little bit more and she became aware of the situation a shy smile spread across her face as she mumbled a small thank you, moving to undo her seatbelt and only dropping my hand when she realised my arm wouldn't stretch that way. I remained next to her, my legs refusing to move as her tired hands fumbled to get her out of the car, until Liam appeared at my side. He was still wearing the same clothes as last night, blood smeared on the front as well as what I hoped was beer and not piss. I couldn't fight my smirk once more when I saw the large bruise that was surrounding his noise and under his eyes, Karma finally stumbling out of the car and just shrugging Liam off as we walked towards the door when Lauren was tackling the keys out of Shane's hands.

I had been too distracted by over thinking the way in which Karma had shrugged Liam off and Shane had been too hungover to react quickly enough, leaving us slouching into the last room that had been deemed the worst by the others. It was still significantly lush compared to the hotel rooms we had stayed in for the past two nights, glancing out of the window as I walked in to see the clear view of the long beach that stretched for miles and the sea that was only partly visible due to the darkness that was now surrounding. As I began to unpack my suitcase that had basically been thrown about for three days, with Shane lay on the bed swearing on Baby Jesus' name to never drink again, I heard Liam shouting through the house about who was the best cook. I barely had time to pretend I was in the shower before he was bursting through the door and telling me that Lauren had declared me _Official_ _Cook_, staring me out until I stepped away from the suitcase and made my down the stairs and into the large kitchen.

…..

"Do you need any help?" I looked up from where I was stood chopping an onion to notice Karma leaning against the edge of the kitchen island with her arms crossed. She had changed into another pair of _very_ short shorts and a top that made my head dizzy, making me push the knife down until it grazed against my finger. I coughed to clear my now dry throat, shaking my head and smiling at her weakly when she moved closer to me and placed her hand over mine to take the knife from my hand. Karma knew how much I hated chopping, haunted by an accident when I was younger in which I nearly bled out from a small cut on my thumb which turned into a murder scene in a surprisingly short amount of time.

"Thanks." I spoke softly as I turned the pan on next to me and tipped the onions in when Karma finished chopping in what seemed to be a record time. I listened as they began to sizzle, focusing my attention on those rather than on Karma who had turned around and was leaning against the counter next to me. She was stood chewing on her nail in her usual nervous way and when I glanced at her she looked like she was going to say something, before looking away when she went against it. I stared back down at the onions, feeling myself nearly choke when the next words left her mouth.

"Do you like carrots?" The wooden spoon that was in my hand dropped out, banging a little on the pan before my hands could fumble to lift. I glanced up to Karma who was now on her side facing me. If it hadn't of been for the serious expression on her face I would have laughed.

"Uhm, what?" I asked after a second once I managed to find my voice again.

"It's just I was stood there wondering whether you liked carrots and then I thought why I don't I just ask you, so that's what I'm doing, I'm asking you whether you like carrots or not." Karma spoke, her voice coming out fast and making me nervous. I needed to do something to distract myself from the funny way my heart was beating, fumbling my hands with the tin of chopped tomatoes.

"Karma…" I started, hearing her sigh as she turned around until she was stood facing the counter again. I watched as she pulled a basil leaf off, playing with it between her fingers. The sound of laughter from the table caught my attention for a second, my eyes snapping up and looking over the surface top to see the fat bastards already sat around the table and cracking into the numerous bottles of wine Liam had found.

"Just answer the question, _please_." She said, her voice sounding more genuine than I had ever heard it before. When I forced myself to look up to her face I could see that her eyes were pleading with me in a way that made my head become unbelievably confused. Why did she want to know this? Why did Karma _care_? The desperate part of my brain that was still adamant that Karma might come around was telling me to lie, to say that Reagan means nothing to me. But then there was the snide part of my brain that was telling me to lie again, but say that Reagan means everything to me. So after another minute of staring at the meat sauce in front of me and sprinkling the basil leaves in that Karma handed to me, I went with the truth.

"I don't know," I mumbled, hearing Karma sigh a little more when I gave what was clearly an unsatisfactory answer, when I looked up her head was tilted to the side and her eyebrow was arched. "Why do you want to know this?"

"I don't know." She answered, and now my head tilted to the side because that wasn't enough for me either. That didn't give me hope, nor did it give me clarification, and in a moment like this I needed clarification.

"I _could_ like carrots," I said after another moment when I stepped away and grabbed the plates from the cupboard behind me, turning around and handing them to Karma who was now looking at me with a face that was filled with no emotion. Literally nothing. I was fully stepping off the edge right now, freefalling through the sky, and Karma wasn't letting me know whether she was going to catch me at the bottom or whether she was going to let me smack against the ground.

"That's good." She spoke after a second as she watched me set the cutlery on top of the plates, my hands fumbling to carry all of the glasses in one go. _That was twice now I had stepped off the edge with Karma, and twice she hadn't caught me_. I pushed the thought aside, an awkward silence setting between us before I forced my legs to move, stepping around her and walking out to the table that was surrounded by people drinking, one of whom being Shane who only moments before had been swearing against this situation. I rolled my eyes at him when he tried to tell me he was bullied into it, before swapping his defence to saying that I couldn't judge anyone. He shut up when I threatened not to feed him. I dropped the glasses down onto the table quickly before retreating back to the kitchen, closing my eyes and sighing when I heard Karma come over behind me. That was her chance to walk away, to involve herself in the conversation out there and pretend that she was busy, yet here she was back again. I began to open the cupboards to see what food Liam's 'maid' had stocked the cupboard full with, rambling to Karma about how they had her favourite cereal to fill the silence, hearing her voice crack through again.

"I meant it, about it being good the whole carrot thing. I'm happy for you, if that's what you want." I turned around from the cupboard I had had my head shoved into, looking at her to see her shrug her shoulders a little and flash me a small bittersweet smile. I felt the frown on my head before I could stop it, as well as the snort that left my mouth.

"What I_ want_?" I asked her, watching as the small smile that had been on her face faded a little.

"Carrots are-"

"Can we please stop speaking in the fucking metaphor and just say Reagan's name?" I snapped through my whispered voice as I turned around to stir the sauce, grabbing the pack of spaghetti I had found and throwing it into the boiling water. I sighed weakly as I glanced back up to Karma, the anger fading from my face when I watched hers fill with sadness and regret.

"Amy," Karma spoke, her voice a little softer than before as she stepped forward until she was stood just behind me. I sighed, spinning round on my heels only to regret it when I realised Karma was a lot closer than I thought, regretting it even more when she didn't step back. I wanted to turn around to see whether anyone from the table was looking over, whether Karma's own boyfriend who was fully aware of my love for his girlfriend was looking up, but I was too busy getting lost in her eyes that I couldn't pull myself away.

"You're what I want, but I can't have you. So yes, Reagan is something that I could grow to like a lot more." I snapped a little, watching the sad look that crossed over Karma's face. I sighed and threw my head down, groaning in frustration at this entire situation. "I won't though, grow to like Reagan a lot more I mean. I doubt it, anyway."

"Why?"

"Because she isn't what I came here for." I spoke, watching Karma's mouth open a little before I carried on with my voice that wouldn't stop shaking, "I came on this trip to fix things with you and to sort myself out, not to throw myself head first into another relationship with someone else. I think she's great, but she's not…" I faded off because I didn't want to say 'she not you'. I didn't want to give Karma anymore hold over me, but from the smile that tugged at the side of her lips she knew what I was going to say anyway. Her smile wasn't smug or arrogant, but I knew that me telling her I didn't want Reagan reassured her in some way. And that also strangely annoyed me.

…..

"So how did you meet Liam, Reagan?" Lauren asked as I walked over to the table, carrying a bowl of spaghetti that was filled with enough food to feed a small army. I handed it to Shane who began to scoop amounts onto his plate that astonished me as I slid into the seat next to Reagan, watching Karma peck Liam quickly on the lips as she dropped the bowl of bread onto the table. Our eyes met for a brief second before I snapped mine away when Reagan tapped me on the arm, a sweet smile on her face as she handed me the bowl of spaghetti.

"We met a couple of years ago when I was looking for work, I did some waitressing for his parent's dinners. He was the only one there who didn't treat me like shit, so I put up with him for the next couple of years because it meant I got perks like being invited on road trips to beach houses."

"As fun as that story is, I think what we all really want to know more about is how you met our precious little Amy over there," Shane broke through as he poured the rest of the wine into his glass, shaking the bottle in an attempt to get more to pour out. I felt my stomach plummet when Shane, Lauren and Liam all hummed at the same time, intrigued. Reagan was chuckling softly next to me as I froze on the seat, flicking my eyes up to Karma who was pushing her spaghetti around the bowl and flashing Liam a small smile when he turned to her and planted a slippery kiss on her cheek, my stomach churning further.

"You all take a lot of interest in Amy's life," Reagan snorted softly, but underneath the table I felt her hand on my leg. I would have thought it was just a small touch of reassurance, but when I felt it slide round my thigh a little, a shiver running up my spine, I wondered whether there was in fact more to me and Reagan. _Maybe Lauren was right, maybe something could happen between me and Reagan._ I lifted my eyes from my bowl to see Liam smiling the same smile that made me want to choke him, Lauren and Shane grinning smugly at me, and Karma with her head buried deeply in her bowl as she picked at a piece of bread. The entire situation baffled me. _Why did she care so much?_ Why did this all make her so uncomfortable when I could clearly see Liam's fingers playing with the soft curls that always formed at the back of her neck whenever she was hot? Why did she make me feel guilty for possibly wanting Reagan when she already had Liam?

"What can I say, I thrive on other's misfortune," Shane laughed as he gulped from his wine glass, winking at me when I flashed him a small glare. This was his payback for my weeks of crying to him, of throwing up on him, of him having to put me to bed. He was now making me squirm uncomfortably in situations that he manipulated me into, and he was loving it.

"There isn't much to say, we met in a bar and hit it off, that's it." Reagan spoke. I noticed from the corner of my eye that she was looking for me to add something, but I just sat there spinning my fork in the pasta and lifting it only to let it drop back into the bowl. My appetite was gone and I groaned internally when Lauren now piped up.

"Do you often meet girls in bars and try it on with them in the toilets?"

"Lauren." I snapped, finding my voice again when I felt the situation had turned from Shane and Lauren teasing me to interrogating Reagan next to me. The hand that was still on my thigh squeezed a little, making me tense as my eyes moved to Karma who stared at me like she knew where Reagan's other hand was right now. The irritating feeling of guilt hit me again. "I'm going to find more wine."

"Oh great, drunk Amy is back." Lauren snorted from the table, my eyes looking over my shoulder and glaring at her as I headed in the direction of the toilet rather than the wine rack.

"Shut the fuck up, Lauren."

…..

I sat with my feet dangling into the pool, swinging them absentmindedly and watching as the water rippled across the surface of the settled pool. It had been a couple of hours since the dinner that could only be described as a disaster as well as an interrogation interview from Shane and Lauren, who had clearly consumed too much wine whilst I was cooking and dinner and had taken the opportunity to say everything they had wanted to over the past few weeks. After I had strolled back to the table carrying new armour in the shape of multiple bottles of wine I listened as Shane retold some more of my drunk stories, the tension only increasing between me and Karma as Liam laughed along, stupidly not realising the reasons for my drunk escapades was his girlfriend. When Liam took over storytelling and began to talk through sickly sweet moments between him and Karma I removed myself from the table, fearful of either my dinner making its way back up or my heart breaking right in front of them.

I had grunted in response when Shane and Lauren had said something about a beach party, shoving them away when they tried to make me go. Liam and Karma had snuck away at some point after dinner, most likely going for a sickening moonlit beach walk to talk through the seemingly awkward tension that had been between them since Liam getting decked by another girl's boyfriend last night.

I sighed softly as I fumbled my hands about in search of the bottle of wine that I had placed next to me when sitting next to the pool, lifting it and taking a mouthful before looking over my shoulder when I heard the doors being slid open. I watched as Reagan flashed me a small smile, moving to sit next to me and dangling her legs into the pool as she took the bottle from my hand and gulped from it. I watched as she drank, ignoring the buzzing in my head that was telling me she looked unbelievably hot in the reflected light from the pool whilst she drank from the bottle.

"So, dinner was somewhat brutal." Reagan laughed after a couple of minutes, bumping her shoulder against mine when all I could manage was a weak smile on my face.

"I don't know why they have to be like that. I never asked them to look after me when I was drunk, they just did it… And I know that makes me sound so selfish, but I hate how they're now using it against me to make everything so much worse when they were the ones who offered and the ones who told me to come on this stupid fucking shitty trip."

"That's what friends do," Reagan shrugged, my eyebrow arching at her and making a small laugh come from her mouth. "They're there for you through all the shitty stuff and can be the best thing in the world, but once you're through the shitty stuffy they'll make sure that you're reminded every single day about what a fucking saint they were."

I nodded my head slowly, spinning the bottle around in my hand as I picked at the label and kicked my legs in the pool. It caused a small amount of splashing as I glanced up, the sound of the waves crashing in clearly audible when I felt Reagan bump her shoulder into me yet again.

"Seriously Shrimp Girl, you need to smile more. You have a great smile and it's getting me down with how depressed you look all the time. Things could be worse."

"Could they really?" I asked, lifting my head to look at Reagan but not having time to even finish my smile or hear her answer before I felt myself crashing into the pool and dunking under the water. I kicked my legs to push up to the surface, pressing my feet on the bottom to push up hard, before finally surfacing to the sound of Reagan cackling at the side as she leant forward to grab the bottle of wine that was beginning to fill and float to the bottom. I grabbed at her arm as she leant forward, using my weak strength to tug her off the side and feeling her fall into the pool and pull me under the water again. My soaked clothes were weighing me down as I pushed up, wiping my wet hair away from my face and turning round so that my back was against the wall and seeing Reagan pop out from the water with a grin on her face that was infectious.

"See, there's that smile." She spoke as she moved closer to me. I felt a small laugh coming from my mouth as Reagan struggled with the wine bottle, stretching across me to place it on the ledge above my head. When she stretched back down I became insanely aware of the small distance that was now between us, the awareness only increasing when Reagan didn't back away. _This is too close. I need to move._ I wondered whether to splash her with water, but when she stretched her hand up and moved some of my hair behind my ear I felt myself freeze up. My head was swimming with thoughts. If this had been a couple of months I would have been freaked out about the fact that I was inches away from another girl's face, but right now I was just freaked out about the fact that it wasn't Karma. Something in my head was telling me that this was wrong, that I was cheating. As insane as that sounds, I felt like I was turning my back on Karma and welcoming someone new. Someone different… Because that's what she was. Reagan was bubbly yet at the same time completely grounded, she was mature yet at the same time a small kid in a sweet shop whenever she wanted to be, and most importantly, she was available. She was inches away from me, stepping off the edge, and she was opening her arms out for me. She was catching me. She was doing everything I had wanted Karma to do, everything Karma hadn't been doing, and still my head wouldn't let me lean forward and just kiss her because of _fucking_ _guilt_.

"Stop thinking." She spoke, moving her head forward until her nose bumped against mine. My breath hitched when I felt her hand on my neck, it wasn't pulling me closer yet, but it was there and it was spreading a strange warmth through me. I wanted to stop for a second and think about how this had escalated from me moaning about my friends to me being pressed up against the wall of a pool by another girl. "Amy, stop thinking." She spoke again in her husked voice that made me feel weak.

"I can't." I whispered, feeling the warm breath of her small laugh hit my lips. This was torture. _I was being tortured._ Screw an awkward dinner, this was a spotlight interrogation, and I felt like the spotlight was Karma. She was right there, even when I wanted to forget about her.

"Just stop thinking about her. Let her go." Reagan whispered again. I opened my mouth to say something, anything, but before I had the chance the hand that was on my neck was now pulling me closer until the tiny gap that had been previously there was closed and I felt Reagan's lips crash into mine. Reagan's tongue dipped into my mouth, a mixture of sweetness and the metallic taste of the chlorine from the pool filling my mouth. All images of Karma faded from my head as I felt Reagan's hand slide up from my neck, her finger tips tickling along my skin until she's cupped my cheek and made sure I didn't pull away, despite my every intention of making sure the kiss lasted as long as possible. The feeling of being Karma-free and completely giving myself to someone else was somewhat exhilarating, my hands moving through the water and clutching at Reagan's clothes in a way that could be deemed desperate, but right now I didn't care.

"Are you still thinking?" She pants when she pulls away and even the way her hot breath hits my face drives me insane. I want to answer her but when I feel her lips moving along my jawline and onto my neck the only thing that leaves me mouth is a weak moan followed by a sharp gasp as her teeth nip at my skin, leaving a mark that was sure to be there in the morning. Everything was clouding over behind my eyes and I was pitifully under the complete control of Reagan as she moved her hands down my legs, pulling them up to wrap them around her waist and press me harder into the tiled wall of the pool.

The bubble of Reagan faded a little when I felt the secure hands that had been on my thighs travelling further up, my head screaming at me to stop this now. _This is going too fast_. My lust hazed head knew that this was further than I had planned, than I had even contemplated, but when Reagan's hand slipped under the waist of my shorts with surprising ease and no quarrel from me, I knew that I needed this. Maybe I wanted it too, but for now I just _needed_ it. I needed something other than _her_, and I got that when my legs slipped down Reagan's body and her hand tickled its way into my underwear. I could feel myself shaking like a leaf despite the warmth of the pool and Reagan's body pressed up against me, thankful for Reagan's movements stopping. Her eyes pierced right into mine, a dopey lopsided grin on her face as she leant in and kissed me softly on the lips. I felt like I was being pulled back in, bit by bit, and before I knew it I was back into the Reagan bubble. I was kissing her frantically back, tugging at her hair and pulling her impossibly closer to me and even desperately rocking my hips forward as I groaned into her mouth. I felt like I had been set on fire when her fingers dipped down the small distance, touching me with the lightest of touches and making me arch my back on the wall and into her, her fingers sliding further across me and sending ripples of heat through me. Reagan sucked on my bottom lip and kissed me hard, letting me moan into her mouth. When she bit my lip between her teeth I shivered against, gripping her wet clothes into my hands.

The sound of someone coughing didn't break us apart until it was followed by a sharp shriek. I felt Reagan's fingers stop moving straight away, fighting the groan that was bubbling on my lips when she pulled her lips off of mine and turned her head to look over her shoulder. It was only when she moved her head that I noticed Liam and Karma stood looking down at us, following by Lauren who was covering her eyes as they stood by the steps that led down to the beach. Liam's face was a mixture of surprise as well as his usual smugness, most likely increased due to his whole Reagan shield plan working.

"I could have gone my whole life without having to see that." A drunk Lauren grumbled as she stumbled past them, waving her hands in our direction as she strategically worked her way around the edge of the pool, making sure not to tumble in. My eyes followed her for a second, trying to avoid the ones that I could feel burning into me. When Liam began to laugh, Reagan took that as the opportunity to remove her hand from my underwear, my teeth biting down on my lip to fight the frustration that was washing over my body. I fumbled to push my wet hair back from my face, noticing my shaking hands as Reagan moved a little further away from me and was laughing with Liam about how she fell in by accident as he grabbed two towels, offering them in our direction.

As Reagan began to head for the steps out of the pool, slowed by the weight of her wet clothes, I finally forced my eyes to look up to Karma. Her face looked emotionless, apart from her eyes. Karma's eyes always gave her away and I watched as they filled with what appeared to be betrayal and sadness before she walked straight round the pool and headed into the house. It made me crumble. But at the same time, it made my blood boil. She had no right to do this, she had no right to make me feel guilty for something I was allowed to do.

"Amy?" My eyes snapped away from the position Karma had been stood at, looking at Reagan who was stood at the side offering the towel. The small smile on her face was tugged up at the side a little, but filled with knowledge. She knew who I had been thinking about and it made a stab of shame wash over me. I struggled out of the pool and took the towel from her hand, smiling a small thank you as I wrapped it around myself. "You're thinking again."

"I'm not, I'm just… Thinking." I sighed weakly, hearing Reagan snort as she stepped forward and pressed her lips against mine before I even had the chance to register what was happening. This kiss was completely different from the rough, needing kisses of before. This one was filled with something that made my stomach churn: _feelings_. It was soft, sweet and caring, and when Reagan pecked my lips once more I felt like I wanted to climb into bed and never get out. Every part of my body was screaming at me something different. My heart was yelling Karma's name over and over, but all of my urges and my brain were pulling Reagan back in for another small kiss before I let her go and watched her walk away with a small grin being flashed over her shoulder.

…

I was lay in bed when I heard the door being creaked open, the sound of Shane cursing as he banged his toe on his suitcase that he had dumped earlier. I listened as he fumbled about for a minute or two, clearly struggling to remove his shoes while he was drunk. He slowly lay down on the bed, his movement coming across stiff as she tried to throw the sheet over himself without waking me up.

"I'm awake." I said after a moment, hearing him let out a small 'oh' before tugging at the sheet and throwing himself around in the bed with enough force to resemble a baby elephant as he tried to get more comfortable.

"I'm sorry about dinner earlier on." He said after ten minutes of silence, rolling onto his side so that he was facing me. I lay on my back, staring at the ceiling that was lit up by the light from outside. I shrugged my shoulders and let out a small sigh.

"It's fine." I mumbled, turning my head to the side and offering him a small smile when he curled up closer to me, despite the insane heat.

"I just had sex on the beach." He laughed after a second.

"I just nearly had sex with Reagan in the pool but was interrupted by Karma." I mumbled, hearing Shane's laughter stop as if someone had turned it straight off.

"No. Fucking. Way." He laughed, pushing himself up onto his elbow to look down at me in the darkness. I could see that his hair was all over the place compared to his usual immaculate quiff, and I smiled weakly at him when I saw his blatant excitement at this new twist in the story. "So you and Reagan could actually be something? Or are you just using her to get at Karma?"

"She's different… But in a good way. She's a special different," I said softly, rubbing at my eyes that were burning from tiredness but just wouldn't sleep. "She's stops me from thinking, and I like that."

**I just want to say a great big thank you to everyone who has read and commented so far, nothing creates motivation like a nice comment. They're all very much appreciated. Xx**


	4. Distractions

**Thank you to everyone who is reading and enjoying so far, you're comments are very much appreciated. I know what couple this story is going to end with, but I think I might keep that as my little secret for a couple more chapters. I try to update once a week, but sometimes a little thing called life can get in the way which is incredibly frustrating. Sorry this one is a little later than usual (and I think it might be a little shorter). I hope you enjoy it and I'll try and update again later this week. Thank you!**

"Shit."

My fingers fluttered along the length of my neck, stopping when they hovered over what was the beginnings of a dark bruise that was shaped like Africa on my neck. I inched impossibly closer to the mirror to get a better view, squashing my nose against it to see a clearer image of what appeared to be the shape of Reagan's teeth from when she had bitten down on my neck. Each time I moved my neck in another direction I noticed another formation of bruise, my brain becoming frenzied when I tugged on the collar of my shirt a little only to reveal another mark just above my collar bone. How did I not feel any of this happening? I wracked my brain to remember how much wine I had drank last night. Was I really that worked up that I didn't notice she was making my neck looking like Edward Cullen had gone to town on it all night? I chewed on my lip nervously as I pulled my hair forward to cover the majority of them, huffing when I could still see just below my jaw line. I groaned against the mirror, clouding it up with my hot breath from how closely I was investigating myself. My fingers rubbed at the marks, hoping they would fade away like when my mom wiped a smudge of dirt off my face when I was younger, only sighing when the area just become more red from my furious rubbing. Why had I let her chew on my neck like a piece of steak? _Because you enjoyed it,_ my brain answered me straight away. _Because she stopped you from thinking._

"Well, _shit_." I muttered to myself again, dropping my head against the mirror and banging it over and over gently, trying to make me self-inflicted pain as quiet as possible so I didn't wake the rest of the house. I had counted a total of four bruises forming on my neck, one of them thankfully so small it had taken me a minute to actually work out whether it was in fact a repercussion of my night time rendezvous in the pool with Reagan. How was I supposed to hide them? They weren't even strategically placed. They were everywhere. I spun round and headed for my phone, frantically googling for techniques to get rid of the marking bruises that would remind everyone of where I had been last night, what I had been doing, and who I had been doing it with. As I waited for my phone to load I poked my fingers against the dark puffy circles that were under my eyes due to the complete lack of sleep last night. I continued to poke at them, stopping when I misjudged and shoved a finger straight into my eye, blinding me for a good 2 minutes as I scrolled through the website looking for anything that was feasible.

"Ice. I can do that." I spoke again, questioning why I was speaking aloud to myself but deciding that it was helping me to think clearer as I struggled to get the fridge to dispense the ice, only to regret it second later when it sounded like someone had started up a chainsaw in the middle of the house. I fumbled to catch the ice cubes that were dropping as I held my breath until the sound stopped and I heard no movement from upstairs. I dropped the ice cubes into a paper towel, wrapping them up and pressing it against my neck as I continued to read through other home remedies I could mix up before the rest of the house awoke from their slumber. These needed to be gone before everyone else woke, or more importantly, before Karma woke. I didn't want her to see these. I don't know why, seen as she had seen us in the pool last night. But for some reason my head thought it would make things worse for her to be reminded for the next 5-10 days (according to the lifesaving internet) about what I had been doing with another girl, one that I didn't supposedly love, last night.

I was part way through tipping the vodka bottle onto the paper towel at the end when I heard the sound of footsteps on the stairs. My entire body froze at the prospect of Karma or even Reagan appearing on the stairs. I glanced up from where I was stood behind the kitchen island to see Lauren appear, relief washing over my body like warm water. The thumping of my heart calmed as I watched Lauren struggle down, each of her steps agonisingly timed to ensure she didn't topple head first. She had a blanket wrapped around her like E.T. as she hid away from the bright light that was beginning to beam through the windows. I smirked at her as she struggled into one of the stools on the other side of the kitchen island, dropping her forehead down onto the surface straight away and letting out a small groan. I continued on with my mission to remove my shame.

"What are you doing?" She asked after a couple of minute, her head not lifting from the surface and her voice coming out muffled. I had shoved the ice onto my neck and was now holding it there with my chin as I struggled to tip the vodka onto the paper towel, feeling it finally hit the towel and soak through it in seconds before the vodka began to pour out of the bottle and onto the floor. Lauren lifted her head and glanced up at me, her pale white face scrunching up in disgust at the just mere sight of the vodka.

"Shit. Shit. Shit." I muttered as I dropped the bottle down onto the surface, the ice cubes dropping to the floor when I lifted my head and landing in the small pool of vodka at my feet. I groaned as grabbed the roll of paper towels, wiping away the mess whilst dunking a small part of tissue into the vodka and dabbing it on my neck as I pushed up to see Lauren stretching over the counter to get a better view of me.

"Seriously, what are you doing?" She asked again as I dropped the vodka soaked tissue into the bin. I contemplated whether or not to get more ice from the fridge, deciding to go for it when I remembered that I needed these bastard marks to disappear from my neck.

"I'm trying to get rid of these," I groaned as I pulled my hair back and showed my neck to Lauren, watching as she squinted her eyes to get a better look before a snort left her mouth. "The internet said rubbing alcohol helps get rid of them quickly."

"You do know that rubbing alcohol and drinking alcohol are two different things right?" Lauren asked, my brows furrowing a little before I removed the soggy tissue from my neck and dropped it into the bin, pushing the buttons for more ice and chewing on my lip as I waited for the chainsaw murdering noise to stop again. Lauren was whimpering when it stopping, her hands holding her head delicately.

"Big night?" I laughed as I grabbed a cup from the counter and poured coffee into it, pushing it across the surface until it was in front of Lauren. She nodded as she bent her head down to the edge of the cup, tipping it weakly and sipping from the edge.

"I think I drank too much." She croaked after a second, her voice sounding harsh and throaty as she coughed to clear it before carrying on, "I remember getting to the party and then the rest is all a blur. I _think_ I may have suggested everyone go skinny dipping in the sea. I _know_ I followed through with it. Although, I don't think I took my clothes off because when I woke up this morning my bed was damp from the clothes I hadn't changed out of."

"So, big night then." I clarified as I searched through the kitchen for any pain killers, looking over my shoulder when I heard the sound of Shane groaning as he walked down the stairs. His condition wasn't as bad as Lauren's, possibly due to his midnight 'beach walk' sobering him up, however he still looked fragile as he pulled on a bright yellow top which clashed against his pink shorts making him an eyesore for the early hours of the morning.

"Are we talking about Amy's big night?" He asked as he tripped off the bottom stair, spinning around to glare at it for a second before grinning at us when he stumbled his way over. I rolled my eyes at him, watching as Lauren's face scrunched up in what appeared to be repulse, a shiver washing over.

"I was trying my very best to remove that memory from my head," She spoke as she sipped from her coffee again, suddenly a lot more wide awake now that the teasing had turned to me. "You certainly got over Karma quickly."

"That's the thing, I'm not over Karma, not one little bit," I spoke quickly as I grabbed another cup and poured coffee into, sliding it across to him like a bartender, "I just somehow ended up a pool with Reagan. And was it fun? Sure. Do I regret it? No. Do I want to do it again? I have _no_ fucking idea. I literally cannot think straight for one minute to land upon one single thought. I don't know what to do. Should I just try things out with Reagan even though I clearly having feelings for Karma which means it would be unfair? Or should I ignore what's happening with Reagan and just agree to be friends? What should I do?"

"It's too early for this shit, I need-"

"I think you should speak to Karma about it," Shane spoke as he cut through Lauren, ignoring her when she glared at him. He mumbled something about this being better than me getting drunk, bumping his shoulder into Lauren's and forcing her to spill her coffee down her shirt a little. She grunted at him before snapping her head up when she actually thought through what he said.

"What? No fucking way. Do not speak to Karma about this."

"Because it might make things more uncomfortable?" I asked as I offered the depleted roll of tissue paper over to Lauren to wipe of the coffee. She snatched it from my hand while shaking her head at me and mumbling something about me being 'fucking oblivious'.

"I don't give a shit about whether her life is _comfortable_ or not, I care about you." Lauren spoke, her now oblivious to the shocked way my eyebrows shot up and the way Shane held his heart like it was melting, "What you and Reagan get up to in the pool is between you and Reagan, not you, Reagan and Karma. She isn't you girlfriend, never was. She doesn't get a say over things like this. So if you want to screw around with Reagan, I say fucking go for it and screw Karma."

"Sing it, sister." Shane sang as he lifted his coffee up in the air and flashed a beaming smile to an unimpressed Lauren. I opened my mouth to say that maybe Lauren was right, but felt the words disappearing when Karma's giggles floated down the stairs. Our three sets of eyes turned to look at the stairs, watching as Karma and Liam appeared in sight. His hands were all over her, touching her and gripping her shirt as she clung onto him. It made my chest hurt yet I couldn't look away. When their eyes fell upon us Liam stopped the revolting way in which he was groping Karma, clearly having been unaware of anyone being down here, however Karma continued to cling onto him and giggle in his ear like he was some fucking superhero. I wouldn't have minded, he is her boyfriend after all, if it hadn't of been for the way her eyes glanced over to me occasionally. As much as it made me sick to see Karma and Liam together, the instances had been somewhat limited the past days, and I had put that down to Karma understanding, to her actually caring about my feelings. But right now as she pressed her lips against his neck, her eyes were on me. I couldn't help thinking she was doing this deliberately, that we were now somehow stuck in some fucked up game we were each try and out play each other, to see who breaks first. She knew I would break first. I was the one who was in love after all. But why was she doing this? Why was she kissing Liam, in a manner that made Lauren make retching sounds, before turning to look at me? I forced myself to look away eventually, taking myself out of the game. I didn't want to play that, and if this was all because she had seen me and Reagan last night, it only added to my confusion.

"We're going to go and sit by the pool. Coming Liam?" Shane asked as he lifted his coffee, his eyes meeting mine and as he mouthed _talk to her_. He must have seen it as well, the teasing of my feelings. I watched as he dragged a protesting Lauren with him, her eyes glaring at me when she saw what he had mouthed, her own mouth opening to say something before Shane smacked his hand across it and shoved her outside to the pool. Liam followed after them, completely baffled by the entire situation. My eyes moved back to Karma once the door had been slid closed and the only noise that filled the room was the sound of the clock on the way ticking. I opened my mouth to speak before closing it again. I didn't want to come out as a stuttering mess, as someone who looked like they were in the wrong, because I wasn't. Lauren was right, she was and never had been my girlfriend. I had no reason to feel guilty, to worry about her non-existent feelings. _So why did I?_

"Karma," I spoke after another minute, watching as she sighed and turned her head to look at me. She was still stood in the same position by the stairs, clearly unaware of what to do. When she looked at me her eyes were harsh and the words that I had planned fell from my lips, leaving me as the stuttering mess I didn't want to be. "About last night, I didn't- We didn't… I thought that maybe I should explain and I wanted to- I thought I should…"

"It has nothing to do with me." Karma spoke after a minute, her voice was less harsh than her eyes. My mouth closed up as I watched her walk over to the kitchen, stretching up for the cupboard just behind me and pulling out a glass before filling it with water. I wondered whether I should do the same due to the way my mouth had turned into the desert.

"Are you sure about that?" I asked after a second, watching as she leant against the island but on the end so that she was still away from me. I was thankful for the space, it helped me think a little clearer.

"Of course," she shrugged her shoulders and took another sip from the glass. "We aren't together Amy, never have been. What you do with Reagan has nothing to do with me."

"So everyone keeps telling me." I muttered as I fumbled with the ice cubes in the paper towel in front of me. They were beginning to melt and a small puddle was forming on the surface. I ran my finger through it as a distraction, the bruises on my neck popping back into my head but now seeming irrelevant.

"I just wish you hadn't lied to me about it, Amy. I wish that when I had asked you about Reagan, you would have told me to the truth instead of telling me that nothing would happen."

"Do you know how hard it is for me to tell you the truth these days?" I asked, watching as Karma frowned at me. I felt a small laugh on my lips when I realised how easy it was for Karma to change my entire thought pattern. Before she had walked into the room I had been the strong, confident Amy who didn't care what she thought. Yet right now, I was practically cowering behind the island and feeling myself shrink until I was 2 foot tall.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"You say that I'm not your girlfriend, yet at the same time you make me feel guilty for possibly wanting Reagan. You say that you don't think about me that way, and I totally get that, yet you go and look at me like I'm some traitor when I'm with Reagan. I don't understand it- I don't _understand_ you anymore, Karma."

"That's not true…"

"Why do you care so much when you have Liam? Why did you look at me the way you did last night when you saw me with Reagan? Why do you make me feel like I'm cheating on you if you don't have feelings for me?"

Karma sighed as she pushed away from the counter, moving around to other side as she ran her hands through her hair and just shrugged her shoulders yet again. It was driving me insane. I wanted to grab her by those shoulders and shake her until she actually answered something, until she spoke the truth. I snapped her name, hoping she wouldn't hear how my voice was now coming out as begging.

"Amy, I can't do this."

I frowned when I heard the words leave Karma's lips, completely perplexed as she stepped further away from me. Even from where she was stood I could see her eyes welling up, the redness growing as she shrugged her shoulders weakly at me. I wanted to say something, to say anything that would allow her to speak the words she couldn't say. My attention was snapped from Karma when I heard someone clearing their throat, looking up to see Reagan now on the stairs. I hadn't heard her coming down, my brain briefly wondered how long she had been stood there, but I pushed the thought aside when I watched Karma flee for the door at her first sight of freedom. Not looking back over her shoulder once. I felt exhausted as I flopped down on one of the stools, my eyes glancing up to Reagan who was chewing on her lip awkwardly. My head was spinning from tiredness and confusion and when Shane walked back through the doors, arching his eyebrows at me to see how the talk had gone, all I could offer was a weak shrug of my shoulders before sliding past Reagan and pretending I didn't hear her when she spoke my name.

….

"Jesus Christ that girl knows how to fuck with your head. She plays all sweet and innocent, all that butter would melt shit, but tell her you love her and she'll have a fucking field day toying with your emotions.

I rolled my eyes in to the side in Lauren's direction, watching as she gulped down the rest of her bottle of water before tossing it into the bin as we walk by, huffing as she held her hand against her pounding head that she had moaned and groaned about straight for the past two hours. I felt Shane link his arms through mine, making me essentially drag him along. I wish I had remained in my bed all day. At the time, the idea of fresh air and maybe the possibility of being more than a wall away from Karma sounded like a great idea, but now the hot sticky air I was walking in was making me nauseous, and Karma was still within clear sight. The faint smell of fish on the boardwalk was adding to my queasiness and my eyes searched for a bench for me to flop down on and not move until Liam decided we should head back.

"Tell me again what she said." Shane spoke after a second,

"I can't do this. That's it. Then she walked away and hasn't even looked at me since." I mumbled, looking in front to where I could see Karma, Liam and Reagan all window shopping in what appeared to be a small hut that sold fishing equipment. Karma looked completely zoned out of the conversation, most likely due to how much she hated fishing, but part of my head kept nagging me, telling me over and over that Karma was thinking about something. Was she thinking about me? I swallowed the thought down and turned my head at the sound of a snort leaving a furiously hungover Lauren.

"Can't do what?" Lauren snapped from next to me, huffing as she crossed her arms over her chest and glared at a guy who stared as he walked past us. "What is she trying to tell you from that? She's playing with you Amy, and you're falling for it every single time. She's made you think that maybe there's a chance she might actually have feeling for you too, and you know deep down that's not true.

"But what is that's what it is? What if she does actually have feeling for me and just doesn't know how to tell me after everything that's happened?"

"Are you fucking kidding me?" Lauren snapped, her feet stopping and causing me to swing round which meant Shane went flying next to me as I dragged him round in a circle. Shane was groaning next to me and mumbling about how he had a headache while burying his face into my shoulder. "Amy, answer this honestly. Do you really think Karma might feel the same way about you as you do about her?"

"No." I mumbled after a minute, my eyes following Lauren as she continued to walk and my jaw clenching to fight the tears that I always felt coming whenever I spoke to Lauren about this. Maybe it was because she was the only one who didn't beat around the bush. Lauren didn't cuddle me in a layer of tissue, she told me the harsh truth, and in a way I cherished her for that. Because at the end of the say, nothing snaps me back down to earth like being reminded that Karma doesn't love me. We walked in silence for a while longer, just staring out at the sea that was to our right. It wasn't until I felt my arm being tugged on before I collided softly with another body, my eyes looking up to see Reagan grinning at me. I frowned, fumbling over words as Shane's arm that was still linked through mine pulled me back a little. I glanced around, noticing we had caught up with them, only for the silence to be cut through by the sharp snap of Lauren.

"What the fuck are you looking at?" An angry Lauren snapped, making me flinch as everyone's eyes turned to her and the guy who seemed to be attached onto the group. Lauren was glaring at the guy who was flashing her a toothy grin, the same one who stared when passing by earlier.

"Lauren, right?" He spoke, Lauren's face only coming angrier as she jutted her head forward and waited for the guy to explain who he was. I looked to Shane who was grumbling something to Liam about seeing him last night at the party whilst Liam tried to interject between Lauren's sigh and glares. "I'm Theo, we met last night."

"I don't remember you." Lauren muttered before turning and trying to move around him, only to be stopped when he stepped into her pathway. I wanted to high five him when he just smiled at her once more.

"I'm not surprised, you were quite drunk. I was the guy who stopped you from removing all of you clothes, before you ran into the sea anyway. Remember now?" He spoke. I couldn't fight the snort that left my mouth when Lauren's face turned a shade of red. I slapped at Shane to get his attention away a different guy he was currently winking at across the boardwalk.

"I was- I don't… Thank you." She said through a clenched jaw, a smile forcing its way onto her lips as she turned to look around the small group that were watching them. I let my eyes flicker over to Karma, only to see her staring down her shoes in the passive way she had become so accustom to.

"Its fine," He spoke, shrugging his shoulder in a nonchalant way. "But I was thinking maybe I could take you for dinner, as a way of you repaying me. I know Liam from when I was younger and he said that you guys didn't have any plans for tonight, so I thought maybe I would steal you for a couple of hours."

I stood with my mouth hanging open, Shane looking the exact same way, as I was watched Lauren fumble over her words like a giggling school girl before taking Theo's offered hand and muttering over her shoulder for us not to wait up as though we were her parents. Our eyes followed them as far down the boardwalk as we could see, watching as the fierce and feisty Lauren was merely tamed by a hot looking guy in a shirt who offered dinner. I turned back to Shane when I heard him snort, looking to see him with a small smile on his face.

"That was like the lamb taking the lion to dinner."

…..

"So, are you going to avoid me all day?" I looked up, squinting my eyes when the sun blinded me before seeing Reagan stood above me, a small smile tugging on her lips before she dropped down onto the sand next to me with a soft laugh leaving her lips. She was impossibly close despite the enormous beach space to choose from. When I felt her thigh bump against mine it shot a shiver down my spine, my eyes snapping up to where Shane and Karma were currently frolicking about in the sea, making me inch further away. I think Reagan noticed my movement, but she kept her smile on her lips anyway.

"I haven't been avoiding you." I defended softly, hearing Reagan laugh softly as she cocked her head to the side and looked at me in a way that I would have found totally adorable at any other time. if she had that last night it would have made my heart flutter, but right now all I could think about was a certain red head who's laugh I could hear as Shane tossed her about. I forced myself not to look over.

"If you say so," She spoke after a second. I fiddled my fingers through the sand, lifting handfuls and letting it seep through. It was strangely calming, that was until Reagan's hand moved down next to move and her fingers brushed against my hand, making me flinch away like I been burnt. I felt horrible when the grin did fade from her face this time. None of this fair to her.

"Reagan..." I sighed, watching as she shook her head quickly to tell me not to apologise, a small smile on her lips as she lifted her hand and placed them on her knees that were pulled up to her chest, dropping her chin down onto them and turning her head to the side to look at me.

"Nice neck."

"It looks like you've drawn a world map on my neck with your mouth." I mumbled, my hand moving up and tracing over the bruises. Reagan laughed, her hand moving to pull mine away. I fought against the flinch when she touched me, letting her pull my hand away and move the hair out of the way to look at my neck better. Having her so close to me again was making me head spin. I wasn't prepared for this, I hadn't thought things through properly yet. My mind was sent spinning when Regan leant in and kissed my neck. It was only her lips pressing against one of the bruises, but it was enough for my breath to hitch and my body to kick back into gear, moving back from her a little. I was expecting her to face to say a thousand different things, but it didn't, it was just one. _Understanding_. Solid gold understanding. Reagan knew why I pulled away, she knew that the reason was straight in front of me in the ocean, so why did she choose to close the space that I had made between us yet again?

"Reagan." I breathed out when she was insanely close to me again, her eyes burning into me in a way that made me feel weak. I couldn't fight the feeling that it was more to do with being looked at like that, than it was to do with the person who was doing the looking. Did I like Reagan, or did I like the affection? Maybe I was more like Karma than I thought. Maybe I felt flattered to have someone throwing themselves at me so much that when I spent the entire day thinking about another girl, they still moved closer to me. The thought made my stomach churn. This was all wrong, what I was doing was wrong. Was this leading her on? Reagan laughed, but her laugh was more to fill the silence than from any actual amusement.

"What can't I just sit close to you?" She asked after a second, her naivety a complete cover up for the intelligence I knew Reagan had. She knew what was going on here, she was just choosing to ignore it.

"What are we?" I asked, wanting to cringe at the way I sounded. I tried to ignore the feeling that I was asking a question that didn't need to be asked, that I was making us into something we're not and Reagan was about to turn around and tell me we were nothing. I felt like I needed to justify myself, swallowing away my dry mouth, "I mean, what are doing? Are we just messing around, or this something different?"

"I'm here for you." She shrugged her shoulders and turned her body away from me and back out to the sea. I frowned at her, waiting for her to look back at me but she just stared around and watched as Shane lifted Karma into his arms before dropping her straight down into the water and jumping on top of her when she squealed. I was beginning to wonder which one played with my head more, Karma or Reagan.

"You're here for me? What the hell does that mean?" I snapped, trying to ignore my bubbling anger before mumbling, "You sound like fucking Denny when Izzy was dying on Grey's Anatomy."

"It means I'm here when you need to cry about Karma not loving you, or about Liam having what you want. I'm here when you need to vent to someone about the brutal honesty of Lauren. I'm even here if you need to stop _thinking_ again for a while."

"What would you do that?" I asked, shuffling on the sand so that I was now turned and facing her. Reagan shrugged her shoulders softly and turned to look at me. "Why are you so perfectly happy with me taking about Karma to you one second and the next second you're pressing me up against the wall of a pool and making marks on my neck like those? How can any of that be okay for you?"

"Because I just get it," Reagan mumbled, turning to look at me and sighing when she saw my unsatisfied frown, "I get that you think you love Karma, so that means I'll wait around until you get over this little crush."

"This isn't a little crush." I snapped, watching as Reagan laughed and cocked her head on the side again, this time only annoying me more when she flashed her smug grin. "This isn't a crush, I'm serious Reagan. I like you too, but I have to be honest, it drives me fucking insane when you-"

I was completely cut off when the words that were on my lips were replaced by Reagan's lips, feeling her body crash against mine and force me backwards onto the sand. Her tongue was wrapped around mine within seconds and the thoughts that had been swirling around my brain all day disappeared as her hand cupped at my cheek and held me in place. I wanted to push her back, I wanted to tell her that it angered me when she belittled my feelings for Karma, but body was ignoring me and instead was grasping at Reagan's shirt in a way that could almost certainly be deemed desperate. It was all tongue and teeth as we fought against each other, our lips brushing against each other's when she pulled backwards, hot breaths against my face as her grin was now spreading further than I had ever seen it.

"Tell me that you felt nothing. Tell me that you never want me to that again, and I'll believe you. If you can tell me those things, I'll believe that you're in love with Karma, until then it's just a crush to me. I can beat a crush, I can't beat love. If you love her, I'll walk away right now, but I don't think you do, Amy."

My mouth fumbled for words in between the kisses that Reagan was pressing against my lips. I repressed the groan that threatened to leave when she pulled back from me, pushing herself off me and flashing me a grin and a chuckle as she pushed herself up and walked up the steps to the house, leaving me in a flustered way that I in no way appreciated. I wondered whether she knew what kind of effect she had on me, but the smug grin that was flashed over shoulder as she flicked her hair told me that she did know. It was like she was teasing me. She was teasing me into falling for her. Was I so suggestible that I could be swayed so easily? _Anyone can be swayed when it comes to being wanted. _Reagan makes me stop thinking. She distracts me. She allows me to feel something Karma won't give me, and at the time she's free. She's right there, offering herself to me, and when I don't look into Karma's eyes, she seems like a good decision. Like a good distraction.

My eyes followed after her, a lopsided grin on my face, before turning back and looking over to Shane and Karma. The euphoric feeling that had been soaring through me just seconds earlier suddenly seeped out of me like blood when I took in the sight of Karma stood in the sea, her eyes clearly planted on me. Shane was paddling about in the water, trying to float on his back to get a tan whilst swimming. He would occasionally splash his hands at Karma's legs, unaware of the fact her attention was completely on me. I hated this feeling. I hated it first of all because it confused me. What the hell did it mean? I hated it because the way that Reagan made me feel could be washed away so quickly just by one look from Karma. The second reason I hated it was because it added more possible answers to the question. Did I really love Karma? Maybe when Reagan's tongue is in my mouth and she's all I can taste, smell, feel… Maybe then I get distracted. But at the end of the day, the feeling that seeped through me when I saw Karma, when I could so clearly from so far away see the hurt look in her eyes, that only reassured me on what I already thought. _I loved her._ I whole-heartedly-head-over-heels was stupidly in love with her. Everything else paled in comparison to her. Everything else was tinted with guilt when it came to her. Everything else was pointless without her. Karma is what I want.

So why did I feel myself being pulled towards Reagan like gravity?


	5. Harsh Reality

"So, how's the love triangle going?"

I glanced out of the corner of my eye to Shane who had a smug grin on his face as he scooped more sand up onto the giant pile that he was making, before smacking at it with the small spade that was in his hand in a vicious way that made me slide further away from him for my own safety. I just shrugged my shoulders weakly, deciding that was the easiest answer to give, before hearing him let out a snort and carry on with his aggressive attack. I kept my eyes on my sandcastle in front of me, focusing on the smoothing technique that I had been doing for the past twenty minutes in a futile attempt to actually make it look like a castle. I didn't want to talk about this. Not now. I was tired of talking about things. I glanced to Shane's sandcastle which could only be described as a massive mound of sand before turning to Reagan's which looked somewhat similar, apart from the ditch that she had dug around the mound to make a moat. My eyes looked across the sand and over to the water where Reagan was currently dabbling her feet through whilst getting a bucket of water to fill her moat with.

"Decided which corner of the triangle you're going to pick yet?" Shane asked again, his nagging voice in my ear as he moved round to the other side of his sandcastle to be closer to me. I rolled my eyes as I looked up, his sly smile joined by a wiggle of his eyebrows as he looked at my hands and tried to copy my smoothing actions I had perfected.

"I wouldn't call it a triangle," I mumbled, shrugging my shoulders again when Shane cocked his head to the side and just laughed at me, "Seriously, I wouldn't. I mean, how can it be a triangle when first of all Karma doesn't even have feelings for me, and second of all she has managed to avoid me pretty well for the past four days?"

"She hasn't been avoiding you." Shane defended weakly, but when I lifted my head the small, genuine smile on his face told me he knew otherwise. He let out a slow sigh. It was filled with sympathy, and it made me want to cry. The sharp bite of my tongue overpowered the sense with pain and it worked.

"She hasn't said one word to me. She hasn't even looked at me. The other night I was going up the stairs and she was coming down and you would think I was made of fire with the way she lunged to the other side to get past me as fast as she possibly could."

"So screw her, pick Reagan."

"God, why do you and Lauren keep saying that? It's not that as easy as that, Shane. I can't just pick her and pretend I don't care about Karma." I sighed weakly, smacking my hand on the pile of sand hard enough for it to sting against my skin. "It's just- When she avoids me, it makes me angry. And by angry I mean so insanely infuriated that it makes me want to scratch my own eyes out. When she's like this it makes me want to hate her, and then it makes me hate myself when I realise I am incapable of feeling anything for Karma but love."

"I think maybe you should just forget about both of them. Just enjoy this trip."

"I should never have come in the first place," I muttered as I lifted Shane's small spade and began to carve windows onto my sand pile, "If I had stayed at home I would have been feeling better than this by now. Distance may not make you totally forget, but having Karma here every single day makes sure that I'm reminded. Constantly. _How_ am I supposed to enjoy this trip?"

"You would _not_ have been better if you had stayed at home, Amy. You would have carried on the way you were going and you would have just spent the entire time that we've been here hammered at home, alone."

"What's wrong with that? The tequila was helping a lot more than this," I mumbled, looking up to see Reagan now skipping back across the beach and over to us, a bucket in her hand that was filled with water and swishing over the edge as she walked. I kicked Shane's leg to get him to stop talking when he carried on mumbling, a high pitch squeal leaving him before he plastered a fake smile across his face and beamed up at Reagan through clenched teeth.

"Okay, so mine's done." Reagan sang happily once she poured the water into the ditch, watching as it filled up barely a centimetre. I chewed on my lip as I watched it soak straight into the sand, Reagan shrugging her shoulders nonchalantly before looking back down at us. "How are we going to judge who the winner is? We'll all be bias."

"I'm mature enough to make a decision on a sandcastle without being biased," Shane muttered, slightly offended as he stood up, brushing the sand off himself before placing both hands on his hips like Superman and peering down at the sandcastles. When he declared his as the winner in a predictable fashion I rolled my eyes, glancing past him at the group of guys who were walking past, crates of bear in their hands.

"Hey, tall guy!" I shouted, watching as he spun round and looked over, my hand waving him over before watching as he waltzed towards us in a smug manner. "Hi, yeah, I need you to judge which sandcastle is the best."

"Excuse me?" The guy laughed, an exasperated sigh leaving my lips as I repeated the statement and watched Shane plop back down next to his sandcastle, muttering that his judgement was correct and this was a scandal which clearly needed Olivia Pope's assistance.

"They're all pretty shit, I'm going to be honest," The guy spoke, watching as all of us just carried on staring at him, waiting for an adequate answer, "But I guess I'll have to go with that one because she's attempted to put a moat around it."

Reagan began to squeal and roll about on the beach like someone had handed her a Nobel Peace Prize. Shane tried to break his mound in a fit of frustration, only to realise that he had patted at it and smoothed it so much it was now practically concrete, another high pitched yelp leaving him when it hurt his hand. He resorted to storming off in his usual dramatic manner, heading straight for the steps that led up to the house.

"Listen, we're going to a party just a little bit further down the beach. We'd love it if you two could come, you can get your friend and bring him as well."

"No thanks, I think we're probably going to get something to eat soon anyway." Reagan cut through straight away, standing up to brush the sand off her clothes before turning to me and offering her hand. I frowned when she I noticed the hand, unable to fight the smirk on my face when I realised that Reagan was peeing on me. This was her marking her territory, her glare being aimed at the guy when he flashed me his grin once more. It baffled me how she was more than happy to pee on me now, yet when it came to Karma she was so laid back that she wouldn't care whether I had sex with Karma right in front of her. Did she not see Karma as a threat? _Of course she didn't. She didn't even acknowledge my feelings for her._ I let out a small laugh, ignoring Reagan's hand as I pushed myself up and turned to the guy. My voice was filled with tiredness, weariness and vacancy as I spoke.

"Yeah, I'll come."

…

Everything felt numb as I walked along the beach, although I don't know whether I could consider this as walking as I was being half carried-half dragged along by the guy from earlier and another one his friends. My mind felt completely blank. I slightly remembered getting to the party and the bottle of tequila that was just handed to me, but after that everything was blank. I had no idea what time it was, the only clues being the darkness of the beach as well as the exhaustion my body was feeling. I could hear the guys trying to remember how far down the beach I was when they found me earlier on, but I was too tired and too drunk to even try and help. All I wanted to do was lie down and I think my body decided to do that because I felt the guy on my left struggle to get me back up onto my feet before eventually one of them scooped me up and swung me onto his shoulder like I was some damsel in distress being rescued. _This was all very shameful_. This was the first time since getting here I just wanted to climb into the sweaty bed next to Shane and never get out. My eyes were stinging and the thoughts that had being overpowering my head earlier were now gone. It was somewhat refreshing. They had been washed away with the tequila and that was a small victory in the waves of regret I was beginning to feel.

I hadn't drank this much since the night before we left for the trip. My body was rejecting it and as I hung over the back of a guy whose name I didn't even know, I had to close my eyes and focus myself to control the swirling of my stomach that was threatening me with vomit_. Please don't let me be sick on him._I kept my eyes closed for the next couple of minutes before I heard the murmuring of voices and the movement stopping, peaking my eyes open and listening to what was being said. Even in my drunken state I recognised Karma's voice. It was high pitched and filled with worry but I didn't have time to think about it before I was being swung over the guy's shoulder and dropped down onto the sand. I'm pretty sure it would have hurt at any other time, but I couldn't feel anything right now. I lay back, looking up at them. Karma was crouched down next to me, her hand stretching forward and cupping my cheek to hold my head up. Her hand was warm and I leant my face into it, missing the simple touches that I treasured from her. The simple moving of hair, or brushing of hands or even a hug. I just missed touching her. I missed the Karma that I loved, the one who would never abandon me. I felt like someone was punching me in the stomach every time her eyes met mine. In that moment I wished I had drank more. I wished I had drank enough so that when I was with Karma I wouldn't be able to think these things, to feel these things. I wished I had drank more until I had forgotten why I was drinking in the first place. When I noticed their mouths were moving I tried to focus my blurred hearing.

"-our friend thought she might have been spiked, but we don't think so. I think she's just really drunk, she drank _a lot_. She's was drinking for a purpose."

I zoned out against, lying on the sand running my fingers through it. I tried rolling to the side to see whether my sandcastle was still there but Karma's grip on me was so strong that I couldn't move, looking back up to her and noticing that she was now staring down at me and the guys were gone. There was a slight hint of anger on her face but mainly it was just worry. Stern, cold, worry. It made vomit burn at the back of my throat.

"What the hell is going on with you, Amy?" Karma asked, but the whispered way she said it told me she didn't want an answer. I wouldn't have answered anyway because I was too distracted by the anger that was bubbling again. This was the first time she had spoken to me in four days, since that morning in the kitchen. This is the first time she has recognised my existence, and she wants to know what's going on with me? I managed to wriggle away from Karma's touch, rolling onto my stomach and somehow managing to make it up onto my feet, stumbling straight forward until I landed on the hard wooden steps. I felt my hand bang against them, but I didn't feel the pain. I did, however, feel Karma grabbing at me again, my shoulders shrugging her away. I could hear her barking my name behind me as I struggled up the steps, crawling them for the majority of the way. I finally made it to the top before letting out a small cheer and stumbling once more, straight into Karma's arms.

"Amy what the hell is wrong with you? I'm trying to help you." Karma snapped, stepping in front of me and stopping me from staggering any closer to the pool. Her eyes looked wide, filled with concern and exasperation. When she stepped forward to take my hand once more I pulled mine away, stumbling yet again and practically growling with annoyance at my weak legs.

"Don't do that." I snapped at her, my voice coming out sluggish and slurred. I watched as her mouth fell open with slight shock from the harsh glare I threw at her, my jaw clenching to fight the impulsive tears that were crawling my throat along with sick.

"Do what?"

"Don't ignore me for days and then touch me like that. You can't do that, not anymore. You can't pretend I don't exist and then come back to me when you feel like it."

"Amy, I wasn't- I haven't been ignoring you…"

"Please, don't," I spoke gently as I tried to fight her hand that was grabbing my arm and steadying me, my voice coming out a lot clearer now and even surprising myself, "Why can't you ever just tell the truth? Why can't you ever tell _me_ the truth? I just want you to be honest with me, Karma. I just want… I want you to be my best friend for fuck sake and tell me the fucking truth for once! Stop doing this to me, over and over. Stop making me think that everything is okay one second and then the next you're avoiding me like the fucking plague. What do you want? _Please_, tell me what you want so I can fix this because I can't do this anymore. What do you _want_ from me?"

"I have been honest with you," Karma spoke weakly. Even the way she couldn't look at me told me she didn't even believe what she was saying. I laughed weakly, forcing myself to keep walking and making it around her before I felt her fingers wrapping around my wrist again and my name leaving her mouth.

"Karma, I don't want you to tell me you love me, okay? I don't want that, because I know it isn't true. I just want you to look me in the eye and be _honest_ with me. I just want you to tell me what I can do to fix everything because I want my best friend back. I need you back. I need you back before I start to hate you."

"Hate me?" Karma asked, her voice sounding like she had been stung. I felt something running down my face and it wasn't until my hand wiped at streams of tears that I realised I was crying. I was sobbing, uncontrollably. I wanted to run away, straight down the steps and into the ocean. I wanted to feel the waves smack against me, because I was more than sure that they would hurt less than what I'm feeling. I wiped at tears haphazardly, looking back to Karma who looking at me like a deserted puppy. _Was that how I looked when she deserted me?_

"I love you so much, it hurts. And I hate that. I'm tired of constantly being hurt by something that I have no control over. I don't know how to stop loving you, but you know how to be honest with me."

"Amy, I'm trying, it's just…" Karma's voice faded as she looked away for a second, her eyes looking back at me. Even from where I was stood with my hazy eyes I could see the way hers had pooled with tears, falling when a small smile formed on her face, "Can we talk about this in the morning? When you're sober and might actually remember what I'm saying. Please, just let me help you for now and then we'll talk in the morning."

"Will we though?" I asked weakly, watching as Karma nodded slowly and stepped closer to me. If I hadn't have been filled with tequila I would have stepped away because this was too close. Her eyes were piercing into me, pulling me back into the Karma bubble that I would never be able to escape, not when she was taking my hand and leading me after her and through the doors into the house.

I struggled against her when she tried to pull me towards the stairs, grumbling something about being too tired and hearing her laugh as she slowly led me back to the couch. My body flopped down onto it with enough force for me to nearly fall straight off if it hadn't have been for Karma stood next to me, pulling my shoes off my feet and snatching a rug off the chair to drape over me. I was shivering uncontrollably even though I could feel myself sweating. When she went to get a bucket in case I was sick I had to close my eyes just to steady my breathing. This was all too much. _She was too much for me_**. **She appeared at my side a minute later, saying something about not being able to find a bucket and instead setting the largest pot she could find next to me. I made a small mental note not to use the pot to cook pasta anymore, hoping my sober self would remember at least that from tonight. I wanted to forget everything. I wanted a clean slate, a fresh start. I curled up under the blanket, my tired eyes only feeling heavier in the darkness and warmth of the room. Karma was sat on the coffee table next to me, her eye burning into me. I couldn't fight the shiver I felt when her hand stretched forward and ran through my hair.

"Amy, _please_ stop doing this. Please stop doing this to yourself, you're better than this. You're more than this."

I hummed softly as her fingers tickled over my scalp, a feeling that I would never get tired of. I would never get tired of having Karma this close to me, of having her be the only thing I could see, smell and feel. I was so tired I was asleep within seconds, but not before I heard the small hushed '_I love you_' leave Karma's mouth. It made my heart clench, because our meanings of love were completely different and she would never understand the crushing feeling of my love.

…..

My eyes fluttered open when the sound of banging in the kitchen echoed over to the couch. I glanced out of the large windows to see darkness still outside before pushing myself up onto my elbows and letting out a few slow breaths to steady my swirling stomach. My eyes caught sight of Karma, curled up awkwardly on the chair that was across from me. Her arms were wrapped around her body in attempt to battle against the air conditioning that had plummeted the room into freezing conditions. I swung my legs off the couch, hearing my foot smack against the pot that Karma had placed there. I scrambled to stop the rattling sound, noticing to my astonishment the lack of sick that was in it, before looking over my shoulder to see Reagan stood looking at me, a smile plastered on her face.

"Oh good, you're awake." She spoke quickly before taking the pot from my hands and turning to head back over to the kitchen. It was all very confusing. My eyes searched for a clock to see what time it was whilst my feet took me over to Karma, draping the rug over her now. When another bang came from the kitchen I tiptoed over to it, doing my best to move around the furniture in the darkness of the room. When I walked into the edge of the couch I wondered whether I was still drunk. I most likely was, seen as the darkness and the burning of my eyes told me I hadn't been asleep longer than a few hours.

"What are you doing? What time is it?" I asked when I watched Reagan snatch the bag from the top of the kitchen island before scooping up the car keys and heading for the door. She stopped and turned around, waiting for me when I didn't follow. My entire body groaned. I wanted sleep. I wanted a shower. I didn't want to go exploring with Reagan in the darkness. Yet, I followed her out and climbed into Liam's car, waiting until she had turned the engine on and was driving off the driveway until she spoke.

"I am taking you on our very first official date." She spoke, my already dry mouth seeming to get worse when my eyes looked to her, a wiggle of her eyebrows and her permanent smug grin being aimed at me. I glanced down at my clothes. It was the same things I had been wearing yesterday, except now they had the occasional spillage of vodka on them as well as feeling sticky from my sweaty night. Reagan seemed to read my mind though, "Don't worry, we're not going anywhere fancy."

"What time is it?"

"Probably about half five."

"_Half five?_ What kind of date is this? Reagan, I only got home about two hours ago." I moaned, watching as she laughed slowly, the car pulling off onto a deserted road, although most of the roads were empty at this time.

"I figured when I found you on the couch that you had a big night. Have fun with your new friend you met on the beach?"

"I can't remember." I grumbled, my hand cradling my head as we drove. Reagan turned the radio on after a few minutes of me just grunting in response to her questions. Everything hurt. My head felt like someone was pounding a hammer into it, my wrist felt like someone had stood on it for some reason and my throat burnt from the dry heaving I had done through the night. I searched my brain for something more than staggering home on the beach.

"Why was Karma asleep on the chair?" Reagan asked after a second. I lifted my head from my hands and looked to her. The look on her face was strange, it was something I had never seen before. Reagan constantly gave off this self-assured confidence that never faltered, yet here it was cracking. She looked at me, her eyes filled with curiosity and hope. Was she hoping I would say that we had argued? Was she hoping that I would tell her me and Karma were still nothing? I didn't know what to tell her, because I couldn't remember. The question was just as important to me as it was to her.

"I can't remember." I mumbled again, hearing Reagan let out a laugh that was more disbelief that amusement. I clenched my jaw to try and ignore it before turning to look at her when she we pulled into a car parking space. "I'm serious, I can't remember why she was there. The last thing I remember is being carried home by two guys."

"Its fine, it doesn't matter. Anyway, we're here." Reagan spoke, swinging the door open and climbing out of the car before I even had the chance to speak. I sighed weakly, opening my own door and climbing out into the air that wasn't cold but wasn't the usual burning heat.

"Where are we?" I asked as I glanced at the small rocky path that led through the sand dunes, watching as Reagan grabbed the bag from before whilst tucking a blanker under her arm. _Was I about to be slowly murdered in the wilderness_? She began to walk down the path, leaving me to follow her yet again before stopping at the edge of what looked like a massive sand dune, throwing the blanket down and flopping herself down. She patted next to it, grinning up at me.

"I decided our first date would be to watch the sunrise."

…..

I stared out in front of me at the orange sky that was beginning to burst with light, resting my head on my knees that were pulled up against me to battle against the slight wind that was blowing. I could hear Reagan next to me, shuffling about on the blanket restlessly. She probably wanted me to talk, or to do something that was more 'date like', but I didn't want to. I just wanted to sit here and watch the sunrise. There was something calming about watching the sky light up in colours of red and orange. I didn't know whether it was because of how beautiful it looked, or whether it was due to it reminding me of my fresh start that I so longed for. A new day meant a new beginning. _Or at least it was supposed to._

"So this wasn't exactly how I planned this to go." Reagan's voice broke through the silence and I had been so focused on watching the sunrise in front of me that the sound made me flinch. I turned my head to the side and watched as she dropped the small granola bar in her hand back into the bag.

"Why?" I asked, my voice sounding hoarse when I spoke. I knew the answer was because of me, but I decided to let Reagan say it instead of me.

"Well, for starters I wouldn't have planned this for the morning after you went to a party and drank your body weight in tequila. I also would have probably known about the whole allergic to nuts thing and therefore wouldn't have brought a granola bar, purely because it was the only thing left in the cupboards, for you to eat for breakfast. I don't know, this just wasn't how I saw this going."

"How did you see it going?" I asked, a small laugh leaving my mouth as I turned a little on the blanket to face her, watching as Reagan sighed weakly and cocked her head to the side.

"I was going to wake you up in your own bed with a kiss, not walk down the stairs to find you passed out on the couch with Karma. I was going to ask you questions in the car that are meant to be asked on dates. You know, the usual shit about what you want to do in life and what your family are like. Then we were going to get here and watch the sunrise whilst eating our granola bar and afterwards I was just going to drive you home and pretend this was a normal date. I just wanted to pretend like we hadn't known each other for a few weeks and this was… I don't know, a fresh start? I know it sounds pathetic, but it's what I wanted. I just wanted you to realise you're better than getting drunk on tequila over someone who doesn't notice."

I opened my mouth trying to think of something to say. I wanted to say anything that would get rid of the sad look that was in Reagan's eyes because it scared me. It made me feel uneasy to see someone who had so much charisma, so much confidence and control, crumble so easily. It made me want to be sick to know that all of that was gone because of me. As if I had taken those things from her by dragging her into my mess, by making her a corner of the triangle. What words would fix that? How was I supposed to wipe away the sadness with a pathetic '_maybe next time'_? So I did the only thing that I could think of. I closed my eyes, leant forward, and kissed Reagan like there had been no past. I kissed her like there was no Karma, or any drama, or weeks of me pining over someone who didn't want me. I kissed her like she was the only girl who had ever made my heart flutter. When I felt her tongue run along my lip, asking for entrance, I pulled away.

"This is our first date remember." I joked, but really I pulled away because of Karma's face in my head. Because every time I blinked she was right there. _**Please stop doing this to yourself, you're better than this**__._ It made feel sick. Memories of last night now flashing back into my head. I had taken those things from Reagan just like Karma had taken them from me, and I didn't know whether I was ever going to want them. I didn't know whether I could ever want them until Karma gave me my pieces back.

"Are you okay?" Reagan asked after a second, her hand cupping my cheek before moving up my face and resting on my forehead, taking my temperature the same way my mom always does. "We should probably head back. You're hungover and need to spend the day in bed."

….

"I'm just going to head up for a quick shower, you should probably go to bed. You've hardly slept and that'll be making you feel worse."

"Okay." I spoke softly, closing the door behind me and watching as Reagan dropped the bag onto the kitchen island before walking back over to me. The grin on her face made my stomach churn, but that was only made worse when she pressed her lips against mine quickly. I smiled softly at her when she pulled away a centimetre, grinning at me before pecking my lips once more and turning to head for the stairs. It was only when Reagan was removed from my sight that I noticed Karma sat on the couch where I had woken this morning, wrapped up in the rug. I thought she was asleep, until she stood and faced me.

"I was going to ask where the hell you've been, but I think that made it pretty clear," She snapped as she walked over to the kitchen, the rug dragging along the floor in the movement. The harshness of her voice felt like a knife being stabbed into me, making it hard for me to breathe as I followed her over to the kitchen. "Did you have fun? Was it a date? It's pretty early so I'm going to guess she took you to see the sunrise, right?"

"You should probably go to bed as well, you didn't sleep much last night so you must be tired." I whispered, my voice coming out so pathetic and weak that when Karma laughed it felt like I was about to be knocked over. I slid onto the stool at the kitchen island, watching as she spun round and glared at me.

"Of course I'm fucking tired, Amy! You know why? Because I spent all night scared shitless about you!" She shouted, her voice echoing around the room and making the thumping in my head feel like someone was driving a train into it. "I was so scared about where you were and what was happening to you that I couldn't sleep. I literally lay there in bed wondering whether I should go out looking for you, so I went and sat on the steps on the beach and I told myself that if you weren't back in the next half an hour I was going to search for you. Then you appeared, being carried by these guys that I've never seen before and so drunk that you can barely walk and all my fear that I had been feeling washed away because you were finally in front of me. But that didn't make me feel any better, because my fear was replaced with guilt. I looked at how _broken_ you were and I knew it was because of me."

"Of course it was because of you, Karma. Who else would it be because of? You've spent days avoiding me- in fact, you've spent this entire trip avoiding me really."

"Did it ever cross your mind to try and think about _why_ I was avoiding you? Do you think it was fun for me to not speak to you?" Karma snapped again as she pushed off the kitchen island, swinging the fridge door open and snatching a bottle of water before moving around the island. She was closer to me now and it made me feel better and worse all at the same time, so I stepped off the stool just in case I needed to run.

"Then why avoid me? I don't understand any of this. You tell me that you don't love me but when you see me with Reagan you look at me like I'm the worst thing on Earth. You have so much control over me Karma and I don't think you even realise that."

"When you told me you loved me it was like someone hitting me with a car. I felt so stupid for everything I said, for the way I didn't go after you that night… I hated myself for how I handled the whole thing. I was completely _blindsided_. I didn't see it coming." Karma's eyes were filled with tears now as she spoke. My heart was thumping so hard in my chest that it was making me dizzy. "Amy, when you realised you loved me you had people. You had Shane and Lauren to talk to, I had no one. I've been so alone and confused and… I didn't know what to do so I stuck to normal, because normal is safe. Liam is safe."

"Karma, I don't- What are you trying to tell me?" I asked, watching as Karma tried a weak smile and shrugged of her shoulders, tears falling from her eyes and running down her tired face. I stepped closer, purely because of the impulsive need to wipe away her tears, but still too scared to actually lift my shaking hand and wipe them away.

"I knew I screwed up, but I thought I could fix it. I thought maybe if you were telling the truth when you said you loved me, that you would still love me even after me being a complete idiot. But then I see with you Reagan and suddenly everything that I had been thinking, everything I had been feeling, disappeared. I didn't know where I stood anymore. I didn't know if you loved me. How could you love me, yet kiss her like that?"

"Karma, it's not like that. Reagan is… She was tequila."

"What?" Karma asked, her voice coming out as a breath of disbelief. I ran my hands through my hair. My heart was thumping so hard I couldn't think. This day had already been a whirlwind and I was pretty sure it wasn't even past 8am.

"I love you so much that I can't think straight. It hurts, and I don't mean that in a philosophical heart break way, I mean that in a painful stabbing in my chest kind of way. To see you with Liam feels like someone is slowly torturing me, and I guess after a while my head started to tell me that it was you who was doing the torturing. Reagan clears my head, she stops me from thinking about you as much. When I'm with her, everything doesn't hurt as much. Reality is always harsh because it never lives up to your dreams, and you were my dreams, but Reagan is a pretty good reality. So when I kiss her, I think about reality because I'm tired of wanting a dream. I'm tired of wanting something I can't have… Something that won't ever tell me the truth."

"I'm telling you the truth now, aren't I?" Karma snapped at me, her face turning to anger within a second. I shook my head and clenched my jaw to fight the tears. I wasn't crying over this. I wasn't shedding another tear over this.

"No, you're not. You're trying to tell me something and you're still wrapped up in riddles. I'm too scared to think something that isn't there, Karm. I'm too tired for it. So yes, I love you. I'm stupidly in love with you, but I'm moving past it. I can't love you anymore because it's ruining me. I need to live in reality now."

I shrugged my shoulders weakly, trying to ignore the way Karma seemed to be breathing like someone was stopping her oxygen supply. I needed to run now, I needed to be away from her. I couldn't look at her crying eyes, or the way she chews on her lip anymore. So I turned on my heel, heading for the stairs. I barely made it one step away when she grabbed my wrist, tugging me backwards. I crashed against her, her warm breath hitting my face for the briefest of seconds before I felt the world disappear from around me when her lips crashed into mine. It was like floating and falling all at the same time. I was completely frozen as her lips pressed against mine. All I could think about was how soft she was, how her smell was the only thing in my nose, or the way her hand was wrapping around my neck and pulling me closer. All of our past kisses, all of our fake show kisses floated back into my head. They were incomparable to this one. Those kisses left me feeling weak, this one left me feeling breathless. Karma didn't add to those kisses with her nails scratching softly along my neck before tickling through my hair at the back of my neck, pulling me impossibly closer. Those kisses weren't special, this one was. It was only when a lack of air became an issue that Karma pulled away, barely though, leaving an inch between us and meaning her warm breath was still hitting my face. It made my eyes flutter and the dopey grin that was on Karma's face made my heart melt.

"This is what I'm trying to tell you, Amy. _This_ is what I've been trying to tell you." She spoke, her voice hushed and calm. I sighed weakly, closing my eyes and just leaning my forehead against hers for a second. The feeling of having Karma this close, of being able to just stand with her pressed up against me, was something I would never grow sick of. It calmed everything in my body and blurred anything that wasn't us. Her hand moved around and cupped my cheek, my eyes fluttering open and giving her a small smile before her lips pressed against mine again.

Her tongue was running along my bottom lip when the sound of crashing on the stairs broke us apart. I had never seen someone lunge away like Karma did, her feet moving her backwards until she was on the other side of the room and leaning against the edge of the couch. Her face was filled with what looked like fear and maybe slight regret and in that moment I was more than sure I was going to be sick. She had done it again. She had pulled me back into her bubble only to let it burst and leaving me falling to the ground yet again. I glanced at Lauren and Shane who were shoving each other off the last steps before pushing through them and heading up the stairs, hearing both of them call my name as well as the slight sound of Karma's voice saying it. Even her voice sounded like it was filled with regret.

**Thank you to everyone who has commented yet again. I'm sorry that this chapter has come so late, for some reason I hit a brick wall and struggled to write for a couple of days. Anyway, hope you enjoy it! x**


	6. Decisions

There were small piles of clothing that led from the bed to the shower having stripped of them as I walked. My body ached from the hangover and I want nothing more than to be stood under the warm spray of water, washing away not only the sweat that had formed over the past 24 hours but the heavy weight of thoughts that felt like heavy weights on my shoulders as I walked. I didn't even care when the water that sprayed onto my body initially was so cold that it took my breath away. I chucked myself under the spray and waited until the water that covered me was so hot it physically burnt my skin. A tingling sensation telling me to steps out from under the heat, but my tired legs not moving. I felt completely exhausted as I stood there, having given up on sleep after three hours of lay in the bed staring at the ceiling.

I felt weak as I stood in the shower, and I wondered how much of it was down to my lack of sleep and food and how much was really down to the crushing rejection I felt every single time I closed my eyes. As soon as I stared into the darkness of my closed eye lids I saw Karma in all her glory, stood there with her fingers brushing over her lips as though the best thing in the world had just happened, but her eyes filled with regret like I had never seen before. When the image flashed before me again it made me want to be sick into the shower, my legs going weak and my hands moving up onto the wall and the glass next to me to support the weight of my heavy and pathetic body. I wanted to cry. I wanted to sob until my heart didn't feel heavy in my chest anymore, but my eyes weren't allowing it. I could feel the constant burning stuck behind them but every time my nose began to sting with tears, they wouldn't come.

I stayed under the water until it turned from scalding heat to freezing cold again, remaining for a little bit longer until I was stood breathless and my heart was thumping so hard in my chest that I was sure it was about to burst. Even when I was stepping out of the shower and wrapping the towel around me I didn't feel clean, my legs still feeling weak like jelly beneath me until I finally stumbled over to the toilet and flopped down on the closed seat. I just wanted to sit here and never move. The more I sat there the more I thought about home, my mom, school. How was I going to cope at the end of summer when I needed to go back to school and live every single day listening to people gossip about Karma and Liam? How was I supposed to explain to my mom that 'Science Camp' had been the worst summer of my life? The entire thing was making me dizzy and I dropped my head a little, watching as drops of water fell from my hair and down onto the floor. The more I stared at the white tiles of the floor that were scattered with drops of water, the more I realised there was no way back. I could never be the same with Karma again. Karma and I were never going to be the best friends who could share the bed, or who could hold each other for hours when one just wants to be hugged, or who could hold hands without feeling a tingle. I had ruined that.

I had told myself for weeks, nearly months, that my feelings for Karma started at the homecoming assembly with that kiss. I told myself that because it allowed me to think that these feelings had caught me off guard, that I was just as ill prepared for this as Karma was. But I had been lying to myself. I had felt things before, I had always known there was something there that was different. They weren't just best friend feelings. I used to listen as Karma ran down the stairs for a drink of water in the middle of the night, waiting for her to get back up because the bed felt empty and cold without her. I used to feel a jealous pang in my stomach whenever a guy smiled at her, putting it down to me just being jealous he wasn't smiling at me. I used to feel this longing need and want for Karma to always be beside me. Whenever I did something, whenever I achieved anything, I wanted to tell Karma. She was always the first person who popped into my head and it wasn't because I wanted a hug from my best friend, it was because I wanted to see the beaming proud smile that she always saved for me. She saved so many things for just me. She never shown anyone else how she cries uncontrollably at Forrest Gump, or how she's so lazy that she has perfected the skill of lifting anything with her toes. The more I stared at the perfect white tiles on the floor, the more I wondered whether Liam knew those things now. What made me special if everyone knew? Was I even special to her in the first place? Because she was special to me.

I felt like I was falling apart as I sat there on the closed toilet seat, forcing myself up and scrambling my shaky hands to grab the towel that slipped from my body. I stepped through the small drops of water, swinging the door open and letting the large cloud of steam out of the bathroom, stepping out in a way that I was sure resembled Mark from Grey's anatomy, before freezing on the spot when I noticed Reagan sat on the edge of the bed, a smile on her face that only widened when her eyes travelled down my body. Her eyebrow arched suggestively and I forced a smile onto my face whilst tightening the towel around myself at the same time and walking over to the curtains on the window, tugging them closed and blocking out the afternoon sun that was burning through the window as it lowered. It plummeted the room darker until Reagan flicked the bedside lamp on next to her as she pushed herself up onto the bed, leaning against the headboard and crossing her arms over her chest.

"I came up to wake you, but clearly you're already awake." She spoke, her voice sounding too cheerful for me right now. I wanted to put music on. I wanted to drown out the sound of voices that I could hear from downstairs, Liam and Shane playfully arguing over something. "Karma's cooking dinner. She told me not to wake you, but I thought you might be hungry."

The way she said it and the look on her face that followed me as I walked over to my suitcase, which I hadn't emptied despite being here over a week, suggested to me that she wanted me to tell her she had done the right thing. It made an annoying pang of pain hit me in the stomach when I realised that Reagan was built on competition. I couldn't help but wonder how much of her actually liked me, and how much the rest was motivated by beating out Karma. I just decided to shrug my shoulders in the end, the edges of my mouth turning up a little to show a weak smile before I dug through the suitcase and looked for anything that would be comfortable right now. I faintly listened to Reagan ramble about what they had done today. She had gotten a shower and come into see me but I had been asleep (I hadn't really, but I didn't want to speak to her so I pretended to be) then they had gone to the boardwalk for a little bit with Theo and a few of his friends before getting back about half an hour ago because they were hungry. It made sense now why the house had been so quiet. Reagan mentioned that Karma had acted weird all day, having not gone with them to the boardwalk, but I already knew because I had lay in bed for half an hour earlier in the day listening as she paced outside my door, deciding whether or not to come in.

"Have you even slept at all? You look exhausted." Reagan spoke, pushing forward on the bed a little and sliding over to the edge. I nodded my head and mumbled something about it just being the hangover. When I felt her eyes burning into me I just grabbed the first shirt I could find. I went to drop the towel before feeling like the room was suffocating me with Reagan's eyes on me. I turned around, pulling my underwear on weakly with the towel still wrapped around me before dropping it with my back turned to Reagan and tugging the shirt on over my head. As it fell down I spun around, a sly grin on Reagan's face as she pushed herself off the bed and walked over to me. I'm more than positive that if this was any other time I would be feeling great, euphoric even. I'm stood in front of a girl who wants me, who's letting me have her. Yet all I can think about as Reagan walks towards me is Karma and my major lack of pants.

"Maybe you should go back to bed. You look tired." Reagan spoke as she stood in front of me, close enough for her hand to reach up and cup my cheek, her thumb running under my eyes and over what I presumed to be dark purple circles. They were probably filled with tears that I wanted to shed, but that my body was clearly storing up for a more important time.

"I'm not really tired." I mumbled, smiling softly at Reagan when she cocked her head to the side and let her hand move down to curl around my neck, pulling me forward until her lips were brushing against mine in the smallest of kisses. Even then, even when it was so soft that I would barely have felt it if my eyes had been closed, I struggled to breathe. I don't know whether Reagan noticed that I wasn't breathing, or whether she noticed how stiff I was, but she moved her face back and smiled softly at me. It reassured me a little.

"Nice shirt." I looked down, following Reagan's eyes and feeling my stomach plummet impossibly further when I noticed the soft shirt that had fallen around me was Karma's. She had gotten it from Disneyland when she was 8 years old and worn it around to my house once, spilling a drink on it and having to change into one of my shirts. When I had washed it and was handing it back to her she took it from me and just opened one of my drawers and slipped it in, telling me that she now had something to wear every time she came over. Eventually she stopped caring about the shirt that she had loved so much, tugging on anything she could reach when she spent the night, but I never got rid of the shirt. I kept it in the same place, the same drawer that Shane had emptied into the suitcase when packing it. It hurt to swallow and smile when Reagan pinched at the shirt, running her finger around the ears of Mickey Mouse. I felt like I was going to be sick, until the knocking on the door snapped my eyes away from the shirt and Reagan and over to where Lauren was now sheepishly poking her head around, her phone in her hand.

"Uhm, Amy… It's your mom. She found out we're not at Science Camp."

….

I snatched the phone from Lauren's hand, ignoring her mumbled apology before heading straight down the stairs, skipping down them three at a time and risking my life for the most part. The shirt was now clinging to me in places that were wet, my hand fumbling to peel it off my body before I stepped off the last stairs and noticed everyone's eyes turn to me. Theo and Liam spun round from where they were sat at a stool by the island, a beer in their hand a sympathetic smile on their face before their eyes rolled down my body to take in the sight of me only wearing an oversized shirt. I was too tired to even care about their lingering eyes. Shane stood next to them and mouth _sorry_ towards me, a shrug of his shoulders when I rolled my eyes at him. I locked eyes with Karma for what felt like minutes, but in harsh reality it was only a second. She looked tired like me, dark purple circles under her eyes that only came whenever she cried. I wished that she had been crying, that she was hurt. I wished that she was feeling just as bad as me and that she couldn't sleep as well. I turned away and headed for the door, closing it behind me to block off Shane who had already followed me to listen. I lifted the phone to my ear, a few shaky breaths leaving me as I listened to the faint sound of my mom retelling Bruce what Lauren had clearly just told her.

"Mom?" I spoke after a deep sigh, walking around the edge of the pool before sitting down at the edge and dropping my legs into the water, feeling goose bumps rise on my arms when the coolness made me shiver. I revelled in the quiet of just the waves being heard from down on the beach, listening as they crashed against the sand in a rhythmic motion.

"Maybe you can explain to me a little better why you thought it was acceptable to just take off to another state and lie to me about where you were going? Because Lauren couldn't offer me anything good. What were you thinking, Amy? Do you know how unsafe that is, you can have been-"

"I know, I'm sorry." I cut through her, deciding I didn't want to listen to my mom list every single type of murder I could have been put through. It felt pointless now, I hadn't been murdered, I was still alive. Murder would have been better than this torturous trip. I heard my mom snort down the phone before telling Bruce to shut up when he began to fire questions at her. I could just imagine her pacing the kitchen right now, the same way she did whenever her spoke with my uncle who she hated with a sibling passion.

"You're sorry? Amy, that isn't good enough. As soon as you get back to Texas you are grounded and that is only until I think of something worse. That goes for Lauren as well. I might even lock you both in your rooms." My mom snapped down the phone, her voice sounding harsh and a little worried. I sighed weakly as I rubbed at my tired eyes.

"How did you find out?"

"Why? Because you thought you plan was bulletproof and now you want to know how I cracked it?" My mom barked, waiting a second before sighing softly, "I was stood in Starbucks waiting to order when those two bumbling girls that Lauren is friends with came over and asked me if you were enjoying your time in North Carolina. Well, colour me surprised, I knew nothing about this. Do you know how I looked in front of my friends, Amy? I looked like an incapable mother. Why didn't you just ask me whether you could go?"

"Would you have let us come?" I asked, looking up to see the faint outline of both Lauren and Shane stood at the window, clearly trying to work out how it was going from my facial expression. I ran my hands through my wet hair that was blowing in the wind, feeling it beginning to dry in its wavy form.

"Of course not, but I would have stopped you from taking it upon yourself to go anyway!" My mom shouted down the phone, her voice raising high enough for me to move it away from my ear and let it readjust to normal pitched sounds. I sighed weakly as I looked out over the pool, my memory flashing back to the first night here with Reagan. I shook my head to move the memory. It felt so long ago, but in reality it wasn't. I glanced up at the sky when a gust of wind knocked me, noticing it was covered over in dark, stormy clouds.

"It wasn't even my idea, I didn't even know that we were lying about it until the morning that we left. If I had known-"

"Lauren already told me it wasn't your idea, but that doesn't make any different, Amy. If she told you to jump off a bridge, would you?"

"Yes." I grumbled, hearing my mom begin to rant about how silly I was and that she was disappointed in me. I lay back on the gravel with my legs still dangling in the pool, looking up at the sky as drops of water began to fall on me.

"Where even are you? When are you coming home? Who are you with?"

"We're in Liam's parent's beach house in Duck. We're planning on coming home in a couple of weeks and I'm with Lauren, Shane, Liam, Reagan and Karma just. I know I screwed up and I'm sorry that I lied to you about this."

I listened to my mom for another couple of minutes as she went through in detail how grounded I was going to be. We argued for another minute when she told me she wanted us home in the next week. Frankly, I didn't care if we left tomorrow. I wanted to go home, but I knew Lauren and Shane would care. I managed to make a deal that I would ring her every night so that she didn't worry and that we would be home in less than three weeks. I hung up the phone, dropping it onto one of the chairs by the pool before turning and heading for the beach. I didn't want to go back into the house right now. I didn't want to listen as Lauren grovelled over how sorry she was and that she never meant for my mom to find out. I didn't want to sit with Reagan as she kissed me and looked at me in a way that made me feel guilty. And I sure as hell didn't want to sit with Karma. I could even be in the same room as her right now, and that made me want to cry.

…

I stood at the edge of the water, watching as the waves crashed in before fizzling out and leaving the small amount to flood in over my feet. It was strangely calming to feel the freezing cold ocean flood in around me, my legs moving further into the water before I even thought about it. The rain that had been falling for the past half an hour as I sat on the beach had been the spraying drizzle that lay on your hair and soaked through your clothes. If anyone walked past they would think I'm crazy. I'm half dressed, soaked through and walking into the ocean. Yet no one had walked past because the beach was completely empty and the atmosphere was stormy. A crack of thunder had rattled through a couple of minutes ago and waves had crashed harder as I had been sat watching them, yet that wasn't stopping me from walking into them now. The further I walked, the most I felt like I was walking away from all the problems around me. _Had I gone completely crazy?_

I missed how things used to be. I missed waking up next to Karma when she was just my friend and none of this had happened. Before she went on the mission of being popular and before I had stepped off the edge only to crash at the bottom. Had I not been enough for her? Why was she so set on being popular? She was enough for me. She had always been enough for me. If Karma was all I had for the rest of my life it would be fine. But even as I stood there, the water now up to my waist and the waves smacking against me, I realised that wasn't true anymore. I wanted the old Karma for the rest of my life. The one who didn't play mind games and who told the truth. I missed the Karma who sat and sobbed over Armageddon for so long that I was worried I was going to drown in her tears.

"Amy!" I spun round just as another wave pushed into me, making me stumble back a little until the water was only up to my thighs. I noticed Karma was now stood at the edge of the water where I had been a few minutes ago, a bewildered look on her face as she pushed her hair out of her face and struggled to look through the rain that was getting heavier. The sound of movement in the water made my chest hurt because I knew she was getting closer to me. I felt her hand on my shoulder and it felt like someone had burnt me, shrugging her away and turning around to her.

"Go away." I spoke weakly, watching as she just opened her mouth and closed it. "Please just go away."

"Amy, what the hell are you doing?" She asked, looking back over to the house before turning back to me. She stretched her hand out to grab me once more but I shoved her away, ignoring the pang of guilt I felt in my stomach when she stumbled back. My anger was overpowering everything else I was feeling. All I could see was her regret and it was making my throat burn and my chest squeeze. I wiped at my race when the rain become too much, laughing when I noticed I was now crying. Of all the times to cry over the past day, it had to be now. It had to be in front of her. "Amy, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry for everything that I've done."

"Leave me alone." I grunted, clenching my jaw when she stepped closer to me. I fought the urge to push her away again. I didn't want to hurt her. When she stepped so close to me that her hand just had to move forward to grab mine, it made my stomach churn. I moved my hand backwards and out of reach.

"Amy, please don't be like this. I didn't-"

"I hate you." The words came out before my mouth could stop them and my brain could tell my mouth that I didn't mean them. I was expecting Karma to turn around and leave, to cry or to shout. I was expecting anything but the small, sad smile on her face and the weak shrug of her shoulders.

"No you don't." She said softly, her voice so quiet I could barely hear it above the waves. I wiped at my eyes and pushed back my soaked hair. I sighed weakly when Karma cocked her head to the side and looked at me in the way that made me legs weak.

"You're right, I don't," I muttered, my shoulders shrugging weakly, "I love you and I hate myself for loving you. Do you know how much easier things would be if I loved Reagan? She's perfect for me. She likes me, she's funny, and she's available… She isn't a fucking puzzle wrapped up in a maze like you."

"But you don't love her." Karma spoke, her voice sounding lifeless. It angered me even more and I let out a small laugh of disbelief.

"Of course I don't. Do you know how hard it is to get over you when you kiss me? How am I supposed to move on if you won't let me, Karma? You can't do this anymore. You can't look at me like I'm cheating on you. You can't tell me that you were scared so you stuck to normal. You can't kiss me and then pretend like it never happened. I can't have you in my life anymore because it's fucking killing me!"

"But I love you, Amy. I'm in love with you."

It was like someone had popped a bubble around me that was stopping me from breathing. I felt like everything was collapsing in around me, yet here we were stood in the ocean with the waves crashing against and I had never felt like I could see and hear more clearly in my life. Everything but her blurred. Everything but her disappeared and the more I looked at the small smile that was tugging on the corner of her mouth, the more I felt like I was being pulled up. I had stepped off the edge and smashed against the bottom, but here I was being lifted. I was being pulled up. Her smile broadened a little as she stepped closer, her hand cupping my cheek that began to tingle. I replayed over and over in that short period the nonchalant way she just said it, like it rolled over her tongue.

"I love you. When I said I was blindsided, I didn't mean by your feelings, I meant I was blindsided by my own. Everything changed for me that night. I looked at you in a way I had never seen you before and it scared me so much. I felt like I was alone and the longer I left it the more scared I was to speak to you, but I couldn't stand by and watch you be with Reagan. It was like torture. I wanted to step off the edge with you that night, Amy, I was just too terrified. But I'm tired of being scared. I'm tired of thinking that you aren't worth being scared for, because you are. So I love you."

"If you love me, why did you look the way you did when you kissed me?" I asked, my voice shaking. Karma sighed weakly, her face looking guilty but her eyes never moving away from mine. Her hand that was cupping my cheek slid down a little to slide around my neck and when her fingers fiddled with the wet hair at the back of my neck I was sure I was going to hit the ground from how weak my legs went.

"Because I had imagined kissing you since that night, over and over. I wanted it to be perfect. I wanted it to be everything that you deserved. And it was, until I remembered Liam." Karma must have noticed the way my face dropped at the mention of him because she shook her head a little, "I didn't feel guilty because I had kissed you when I'm with him, I felt guilty because I wasn't all yours. I'm still not all yours, and I want to be. I want to be able to call you mine and you be able to call me yours. I panicked because I realised it wasn't perfect and before I could fix things you had ran again, the same way you ran that night. I freeze up, Amy, and then I get too scared to fix things. But I get there eventually, so here I am in the middle of the god damn ocean telling you that I love you and that I want you, Amy. You're the only person I want. Please, tell me that you want me and not Reagan. Tell me that it's me that you love and not her."

"I walked into the ocean because I love you so much, Karma."

The small laugh that left her mouth made my heart flutter and for the first time I had the courage to move my hand up to her cheek and pull her mouth to mine. And just like that, my Karma was back again. The Karma who I had fallen in love with, the Karma who I knew inside-out, the Karma who could eat scramble eggs for breakfast every single day of the week, was back again. When her tongue slipped into my mouth and her fingers ran through my hair, scratching against my scalp in a way that made me bite at her lip before sucking on it, I felt like I was on fire. I felt like we were in our own little world that could never be interrupted, that was until I heard my name being shouted from the beach. My body froze and my brain immediately switched to Reagan, guilt washing through me when I pulled back from Karma to see her eyes beaming back at me. I looked over to the beach to see an incredibly pissed off Lauren stood there, her arms crossed as the rain pelted off her. Karma let out a sweet giggle before grabbing my hand and dragging me after, my feet finally back on dry sand. I offered Karma a soft smile when I pulled my hand from hers, watching as she walked on and looked over her shoulder at me.

"I know I've been a little preoccupied with Theo recently, but after dinner we are going to have a very serious chat about what I have just seen. _Very_ fucking serious chat." Lauren snapped at me, her voice sounding like my mom on the phone earlier on. Even when Lauren was glaring at me I couldn't take the dopey smile off my face, just shrugging my shoulders and heading for the steps. "You both might want to go and change your clothes before your other girlfriend asks why both of you were running into the fucking ocean and throwing caution to the wind."

….

"Tell me again where we're going?"

Reagan who was a few paces in front of me turned around and shrugged her shoulder whilst grinning at me before turning back around and carrying on with her trek. I sighed weakly as I looked around at the unfamiliar road we were walking down, trying to remember the last time a car had driven past. I could feel myself sweating as we walking, the sun hidden behind the thick murky looking sky but the heat rising to whole new levels of humidity. It was like being in an oven that was sucking the oxygen and life out of me. I wanted to go back to the house. I wanted to see Karma. We had managed to get through dinner last night with the occasional smile, all of which was glared at by Lauren who ignored Theo for the entire time due to staring at me. Afterwards I went straight to bed, mainly because my exhaustion was making me nauseous but also to avoid Reagan and Lauren who was a warpath. When Reagan had appeared next to the bed this morning telling me she was taking me on our next date I barely had time to refuse before Shane was screaming about us waking him up and shoving me out of the door behind Reagan, slamming it after telling us he was moving into Reagan's room and we could have that room.

"Seriously, Reagan, where the hell are we?" I asked again when she turned and began to walk up a different road that went in the complete opposite direction of what we had come in.

"I've no idea. We're lost."

"We're lost? How long have we been lost for? I thought you know where we were going." I spoke, my feet stopping and my head frantically looking around in attempt to spot someone who could give us directions or something that I recognised.

"Relax, the whole idea of the date is to get lost."

"How is that a date?" I asked, Reagan's laugh floating over as she walked back over to me.

"I don't know. We get lost together and then we find our way home together. It'll be fun, come on," She spoke before turning around and beginning to tiresome trek again. I groaned into the air before following after her, deciding the only thing worse than being lost was being lost along. "In the meantime, I can ask you all those question that I wanted to ask you on the date yesterday morning. You know, all those date questions."

"Reagan, I think we should ask someone for directions. We could be going in the completely wrong direc-"

"So, what's your favourite food? What are you parents like? What do you want to do when you're older?"

"Doughnuts. My mom is crazy and my dad left when I was younger. And I don't know, a doctor or something as cool as that … Seriously, Reagan, I think we should look for someone to ask. It's starting to get really stormy and I don't want to be stuck in the middle of nowhere when a hurricane hits. Have you got your phone with you?" I mumbled, watching as Reagan sighed and shook her head, her feet stopping and waiting for me to catch up.

"You're taking the fun out of the date. Stop worrying, we'll find our way back eventually."

…

It felt like hours later when we were still roaming the streets of Duck. I didn't know how long had it been, but the sun was beginning to set and my feet were numb from the walking. The date-like conversation had faded about an hour ago when tiredness was getting to us and Reagan was beginning to realise that the date hadn't gone as planned. It was beginning to rain and as I walked behind Reagan I glared at her. I looked down at my feet when I felt my usually comfortable shoes cutting into my heels, not noticing that Reagan had stopped in front of me until I walked straight into her, my eyes looking at the phone that was in her hand.

"Okay, so I think I should probably call Liam now." She sighed as she held the button down on the top of her phone to switch it on. My eyes flicked between the phone in her hand and her face that was sheepish, clenching my jaw to fight the screaming that I could feel bubbling.

"You've had that the whole time?" I asked, watching as Reagan's smile was bitten down by her lip. Usually I would find that cute, but right now I wanted to strangle her. "Are you fucking kidding me? Reagan, we've been walking for," I stopped and leaned over to read the time on the phone, "five hours. We've walked for five hours straight in the heat and the rain and clearly the beginnings of a storm and you've had a phone this whole time?"

"I wanted us to work it out together." Reagan just shrugged her shoulders as though it was nothing. I snorted at her, turning around for a second to try and control my anger before spinning around.

"Work it out together? Reagan, we don't fucking live here! The whole time we've been here the only places I've been are the boardwalk and the beach, how would we work it out? This was a stupid fucking idea. Use the GPS on your phone to work out where we are and then get Liam or Shane to come and get us because I can't walk any further, I'm practically bleeding out from my feet."

"Why are you so pissed off?" Reagan asked, her smile now faded and her own face filled with anger.

"Because we're fucking lost, Reagan! Maybe if we had gone on a normal date and talked you would find out that I don't like being lost. Just call someone."

"Really? That's why you're angry. Or is more to do with the fact that you didn't get to spend the day with Karma?" Reagan snapped, my brow furrowing as she laughed at me in a spiteful way, "You think I didn't notice both of you at dinner last night? When were you doing to tell me that you two were something?"

"If you knew why did you bring me today?" I asked, snatching the phone from her hand to make the call myself. I flicked on the GPS to work out where we were, hearing Reagan's laugh once more.

"You don't get it do you?" She spoke, her voice laced in anger and harshness, "Karma is never going to feel the same way about you as you do about her. Girls like her mess with your head. They make you think that you're something to them and they fuck you over. Maybe you're one of those girls, who knows. Karma doesn't love you, Amy. She's playing you. It makes her feel better that someone like you has feelings for her so she's stringing you along. Its making you look fucking pathetic. So I brought you today to show that there's someone else in that house who has actual real feelings for you. Someone who is actually gay and isn't just playing with your head!"

"You don't fucking know Karma!" I shouted back at her, my voice bouncing down the empty road. "You've been like this the whole trip, ever since that night we sat on the car roof and you told me that I just liked Karma because she was all I knew. Well she isn't all I know anymore, and I still love her."

"So what the fuck was I, Amy? Was I someone to pass the time? Did you ever actually like me? Was I just a second best option that you chose until you realised that Karma wanted you as well?"

"Don't do that," I snapped, looking back down at the phone to text where we were to Shane's phone and telling him to come and get us. "Don't act like you didn't know from the start what was going on here. I've never lied to you about this, I've never kept Karma a secret. You've always know and you've thrived off of that, like it's been some fucking competition. The first time you kissed me it was about her. Everything has been about her with you. So don't stand there and make feel guilty when you knew what you were getting yourself into."

"You're right, I did know that you loved her, but I also knew that you kissed me. You kissed me back in that pool. You kissed me back on the beach. You kissed me on the date. What am I supposed to think? Why would I think you still love Karma when you're so willingly kissing me?"

"You knew I loved her, kissing you didn't change anything. You knew what I felt." I muttered, looking down at the phone when Shane text back to say he was on his way. I handed the phone back to Reagan, watching as she read it before sliding it into her pocket. My legs felt tired and they burnt a little, leading to me sitting down on the edge of the road as Reagan paced next to me.

"I should have known from the very first time I saw you in that bar that you wouldn't change. You rambled on about Karma that whole night, you know? You went on and on about how much you loved her and how you had ruined everything, but yet again you had no problem kissing me that night."

"I was drunk." I mumbled as I rested my head on my knees that I had pulled up to my chest, looking up the sky when thunder cracked around us and the rain continued to fall.

"If she loves you so much, why is she still with Liam? They looked perfectly happy this morning." Reagan's question felt like a dagger in my ribcage. I had been pushing the thought from my brain for the whole day, ignoring the sickening feeling I felt this morning when I had seen them cuddled up on the couch together. I heard Reagan let out a soft sigh before moving to stand right in front of me.

"I can't do this anymore. I can't be your second choice when I'm willing to make you my first. So pick. Me or her. I already know the answer, but I need to hear you say it. You pick me, you have me. You pick her, I'm not so sure. Me or her?"

**Thank you for the nice comments, I really appreciate them and they're what push me to carry on writing this. x**


	7. Red Mist

My cold hands fumbled with my belt, peeling it from my soaked clothing and flicking it from my body as I ignored Shane when he asked what was wrong, the silence of the car breaking with the sound of Reagan climbing out of the backseat and slamming the door closed with enough force to jolt the rumbling engine. Shane snapped his head forward in anger, muttering something about the lack of respect towards his mother's car. His eyes glaring Reagan down who was currently powering towards the house with her head down, battling against the pray of rain and the anger that was most likely trying to drag her back to me like a magnet. Her fists were clenched at her sides as she stormed across the driveway, as though she was struggling to contain her anger. I wished she would show it. I wished she would yell at me, or push me, or hit me. All of those things would have been better than the snide laugh that she let slip when I mumbled the words _I love Karma_**.** If she had shouted at me, it would have felt better that the silence that had clouded us since, my stomach too curdled with anger and hurt to manage any conversation with Shane when he finally managed to find us. Every time I blinked I could see her snide smile, all I could hear was her cheap laugh, and yet all I could feel was overpowering _guilt_. I wanted her to yell because then I knew where I stood. I needed to know what she was thinking, and the loss of words and stone cold glare was doing nothing to help me read her mind.

I mumbled a quick thank you to Shane before stepping out of the car, making my way towards the door that had been left open by Reagan. I heard Shane shout my name as he climbed out of the car, but I ignored and instead headed in the direction of my bed as quick as my bloodied feet and tired legs would allow me. My entire body ached from the mammoth hike of today and I wondered whether I could muster up any energy for a shower, contemplating my decision as I walked with my head down until I heard Reagan's voice crack through the room like harsh thunder.

"What did Karma say?" I looked up, noticing she was stood on the bottom step of the stairs and was turning around to face me. The puzzled look on my face must have been clear enough for her to know that I needed elaboration. "What did she say to you that's made you so sure that she now wants you? What did _Princess_ _Karma_ do that's changed this whole thing?"

"Reagan, don't." I mumbled, watching as she stepped towards me slightly. Her face was stern and unreadable, my tired mind wanting to run from this situation and legs choosing to agree. I attempted to walk past her but was stopped when she grabbed my wrist in a way that didn't make my heart flutter and my body want to turn around and be near her. The touch didn't calm me like all her other touches had done previously, this one made my stomach churn. Her grip was tight as she pulled me back, my feet stumbling slightly when she pulled me back in the direction I had been, letting my wrist go and leaving me to stumble into my previous place. In the seconds it took for my brain to register the action, Shane had appeared and was snapping Reagan's name in my defence as he closed the door behind him and looked between the two of us. I felt like a small child who had been caught fighting in school by a teacher, my brain fumbling over weak explanations.

"I want to know, Amy."

"Why?" I sighed, running my hand through my hair to pull the wet strands from my neck. I heard Reagan let out a breath that sounded like a small laugh before she just shrugged her shoulders. The aura of confidence that I had found so endearing and sexy before was now intimidating, my height shrinking smaller and smaller with each passing second.

"I don't know. For future reference? To know what changed this whole thing over night? Because I think I deserve to know? Yesterday morning we were perfectly fine. So, what changed?"

"You asked me to choose, that's what changed." I spoke, my voice sounding stronger than I had expected it to be. I rubbed my fingers over my wrist to get rid of the white marks that were shaped like Reagan's fingers.

"That's bullshit. Did she tell you that she loves you? That she's going to break up with Liam?" My glance moved from my wrist to Reagan before moving back again, and in that moment I felt like she had completely read my mind. Another cruel laugh slipped from her mouth as she moved to sit on one of the stools. She chewed on her lip, but that did nothing to stop the spiteful smile spreading on her face.

"Karma told you that she loves you?" Shane interjected, but was cut off by Reagan before I even had time to turn and look at him.

"Liam is just going to love this. Does Liam know? I'm going to assume no seen as I saw them talking perfectly fine this morning. So how does that work then? She plays house with Liam during the day and then sneaks off with you at night? Is that why you're so pissed off, not because of me but because Karma sort of screwed you over with her lies yet again?"

"You asked me to choose Reagan. I'm sorry if my decision wasn't what you wanted, and I really don't want to hurt you, but I'm not going to stand here and let you use me as a punching bag to take your temper out on."

"Fuck you, Amy." She spat at me, her dark eyes burning into me. I chewed on my lip as I glanced to Shane who was stood with his mouth practically hitting the floor, my mind briefly wondering whether that's what I looked like. I hadn't been expecting her to greet me with open arms, but at the same time I didn't expect this. I didn't expect to be stood looking at a girl who I felt like I barely knew. Then again, I did barely know her. She had been thrown into my life and gladly dragged along by me, but I didn't _know_ her. I didn't know whether this was her genuinely hurt, or whether this was the outcome of a bruised ego.

"I'm sorry," I mumbled before turning on my heel and heading for the stairs.

"You're sorry?" She snapped, my heart clenching in my chest in a way that made me nervous. Her voice felt like it was burning my skin every time she spoke. When I turned back around Reagan was cocking her head to the side, her lips pursed and her arms crossing over her chest. I felt a shiver run down my spine, whether it was from the cold glare or the cold temperatures I didn't know.

"Reagan, I know you're angry. But don't make me feel like a terrible person for doing something you asked me to do. You told me to pick, and I did."

"You're right. At least you were honest for once, right?" Her voice was laced with sarcasm and it made my stomach churn. The churning only got worse when the footsteps I heard on the stairs behind me were Karma's, hear body skipping into sight before freezing when she took in the sight of me and Reagan, as well as Shane who was secretly trying to mouth _run_ to her. I flashed her the briefest of glimpse before looking back to Reagan when she laughed again.

"What's going-" Karma started, before being silenced by Reagan's louder voice.

"You've been honest, Amy. I might as well be too. You're going to probably find out soon anyway."

"Find out what?" I muttered, feeling another shiver down my spine and crossing my arms to fight away the goose bumps that were rising.

"Do you even know why I'm here? Why I'm on this trip, I mean." She asked, pushing her hair back from her face. When a dull silence filled the room she glanced between the small group who were all anxiously waiting, before moving back to me.

"Why?"

"Seriously, you never thought about it and worked it out? I thought _everyone_ pretty much knew, I guess you're the only one who never cared enough to think about it. You were getting what you wanted, so why question it, right?"

"Are you to insult me or just tell me?" I snapped, my patience wearing thin. The Reagan bubble that I had been living in for the majority of the trip had now popped and dissolved, completely removing the calming sense I reserved for Reagan, leaving me stood wishing the ground would swallow me whole and never spit me back out.

"I'm here for _you_. I'm not saying that in a philosophical bullshit way either, I mean I'm literally on this fucking trip for your pleasure. And Liam's I guess."

"What?" I mumbled, my brow furrowing and the confusion that was washing through me clearly showing from the way Reagan slowly exhaled before explaining. I flashed my eyes over to Shane who looked just as confused, my thoughts settling for a second and thankful I wasn't the only one feeling like a spotlight was being shone on me.

"Do you think I'm that naïve that I didn't know why Liam invited me here? Everyone thinks that Liam brought me here to be a distraction for you and that I just didn't realise, but I knew the entire time. He called me one day and told me all about this trip and his new girlfriend, how he really wanted to spend time with her but couldn't because she had this best friend that was sort of in love with her. He asked me to come and distract you. To make you feel wanted. To make you feel _so_ wanted that you ended up wanting someone else for the summer. I was sat on my bed with no plans for the entire summer, so I thought _fuck it,_ why not? I packed my bags and showed up to play my part of the deal."

"I don't understand. Why are you telling me this?" I asked, my voice sounding hoarse due to the lump that had formed in my throat. I swallowed thickly, puzzled as to why my entire body felt like someone was chucking a bucket of ice cold water over me. The thoughts spinning around in my head were going too fast for me to land on one of them at one time.

"I don't know. Because you deserve to know?" Reagan muttered.

"That's bullshit and you know it, Reagan. Jesus, so she picked Karma and hurt your feelings and ego a little, that means you screw with her and do this? Did she really fucking deserve to know that? Just because someone upsets you, it doesn't mean you can fuck with them too." Shane snapped, finally moving from his spot and walking towards me. I listened as he stepped past me before screaming Liam's name up the stairs, waiting until he heard Liam's grunt of acknowledgment before turning around and attempting to grab my hand to pull me away. I shrugged him away, looking back to Reagan, whose face was now slighter softer.

"What did you mean by deal? What did you get from this deal?"

"I'm older than you remember, college is my next big thing. NYU offers a music course that I really want, but it's insanely competitive. Liam's dad knows someone high up there. I distract you for the summer and get you to like someone other than Karma, and he gets his dad to put a good word in for me."

"Please tell me you're fucking joking," Shane snapped at her, watching as Reagan just weakly shrugged her shoulders before he turned back around, "Liam move your-fucking-self right now before I come up there and drag you down."

"So, what?" I snapped, my fists clenching the bottom of my shirt into my palms to try and control the anger that was soaring through my blood. I felt like I was on fire. I felt like I had knocked back four shots of tequila in a row, and the nauseous feeling that was extending into my stomach was just as bad as the after effect. I licked my lips quickly, noticing they had become painfully dry, just like my mouth. "I was just some end of a deal to you? I was just you making sure you got your fucking place in college? I was just some girl you fucked for the summer to please your friend? You stood there and made me feel _horrible_, Reagan. You said I used you. And this whole time- how could you stand there and ask me what you mean to me, when all I was to you was _this_?"

"It wasn't ever meant to become anything personal, Amy. I didn't even know that I knew you until that morning outside Karma's house. It shocked me just as much as you. This was just meant to be some fun for the summer with some girl who I would never see again. You started off as just that, but it changed. I actually started to like you. I actually started to want something more, but-"

"Don't you fucking dare tell her that you have feelings for her. Don't try and make this out to be something it isn't. You've screwed with her for since day one." Shane snapped before screaming Liam's name one last time, his feet stomping up the stairs behind me but my eyes never leaving Reagan to look. I could sense Karma still next to me, I could even hear her breathing when the deadly silence covered the room again, yet she appeared to be just as frozen as me.

"How can you stand there and accuse me of being a liar, of using you as my second best option, when you've spent this entire trip lying to me? I was honest about Karma and how I felt, you've never been honest, about any of it. You've played me like some fucking game. You've have me wrapped around your finger the entire time, whilst making me feel like I was the selfish and cruel one."

"Jesus, Shane, would you calm fucking down?" I heard Liam bark from the top of the stairs, a fumbling of footsteps before he came into sight. His hair was scruffy and his eyes were red from the sleep he had just been dragged from. I watched as he pulled a shirt on over his head before looking between us, the small smile on his face fading before it washed over with realisation. I felt my stomach churn with sickness when the first person he looked at was Karma. He stepped towards her and Karma made the first movements she had made since coming down the stairs, raising her hand to make him stop. Her face was something I had never seen before and that surprised me. I knew everything about Karma. I had seen her mad, I had listened to her yell, I had been on the receiving end of her pissed off shouts, but I had never seen this. I had never seen the mixture of fury and hurt that was in her eyes, the way her jaw clenched as she stepped back a little to create more space between her and Liam who looked like a kicked puppy.

"What did you fucking do?" Liam snapped when he turned back to Reagan, making sure to flash a glare my way in the process, his hand futilely fumbling through his hair to pat it down whilst also attempting to calm his nerves.

"I told the truth. She deserved to know," Reagan mumbled. Liam raised his hands exasperated before scratching quickly through his head.

"No she fucking didn't, what the hell is wrong with you? This wasn't part of the deal. Did she piss you off or something? Hurt your feelings? Bruise your ego? For fuck sake, Reagan, why do you always lose your temper and then fuck things up?"

"There was no point in me whispering sweet nothings into her ear when your girlfriend is in the other ear telling her she loves her." Reagan spoke harshly, the anger washing from his face and leaving a plain look. Everyone in the room turned to Karma next to me, except me. I stood frozen, staring at the floor and holding my breath. I had been angry. I had been furious. I had wanted to burn the house down when I saw them together this morning, but I didn't want this. I didn't want Karma to be stood burning under the stare of Reagan and the judgement of Liam. I didn't want to listen as she fumbled over her words, her voice shaking. I was angry that she hadn't broken up with Liam yet, but I wasn't angry enough for me to now enjoy this.

"Liam, I was going to tell you. I was- I just needed the right moment. I was just waiting until we were alone to tell you."

The swirling and churning in my stomach only increased with each word she spoke. _I couldn't listen to this_. It was wasn't until I felt like I was choking that I realised I wasn't breathing, the walls of the room feeling like they were closing in. _I needed to move_. I needed to get out of the room, away from the eyes and glare, and away from the painful mumbling of Karma as she tried to say anything that would control the growing anger on Liam's face. _I cannot listen as she tried to justify this to him. I cannot listen to him tell her that he loves her_. I let out a slow breath before forcing my legs to move, heading for the front door in front of me and stopping when Reagan grabbed my wrist. The grip was nothing like last time. It was just her fingers wrapping lightly around my wrist, a small touch that made me stop quicker than the last one.

"Amy, I do actually care, that's why I'm so angry. Yes this started off as all part of a deal, and I understand how that was wrong, but that's not what this is to me now."

"-You fucking kissed her?" Liam shouted in the background, my eyes flickering over Reagan's shoulder to where Karma was rubbing tiredly at her eyes and just nodding. My eyes moved back to Reagan when her voice floated back into my head.

"I didn't ask you to pick between us to see whether I was doing well with my part of the deal, I just wanted you to pick me."

"-How could you do that to her Liam? How could you play with her feelings like that? How could you do that to her when you know how much she means to me, and you claim to love me?"

"Along the way you actually became something to me, but I was never anything to you. I was never going to be anything compared to Karma, yet you still pulled me along. You gave me hope. I think we both used each other just as much this summer. We both lied to each other this whole time." Reagan spoke, her voice blurred and jarred compared to the screeching that had now escalated behind her.

"-Of course I'm going to be angry, Karma, you fucking cheated on me!"

"-You made a deal to screw with my best friend!"

"-Is that what you want to do? Screw her?"

"-Fucking grow up, Liam. I'm sorry you had to find out this way, but I'm not sorry about how I feel."

"Amy?" Reagan asked, her body moving in front of me and blocking my vision. I felt completely dizzy, as though I would fall to the ground if Reagan let go of my wrist.

"No. I've never lied about my feelings. I've never lied about my motives. I've never lied about you. You've lied about _everything_. You've been part of a little team, with Liam of all people. Fuck you, Reagan."

I snatched my wrist from Reagan's weak grip, moving towards the door that felt like it was spinning before slamming it closed behind me. I could heard the blurred shouting of Liam and Karma through it, the sound of Shane interjecting as I walked down a few steps until the drizzle rain was spraying against my skin. I hadn't realised I was boiling hot until I felt it cool over me. The tears that I hadn't realised were desperate to fall now broke through the wall, pouring down my face and leaving me breathless as I stopped on the bottom step and dropped down, attempting to force air into my lungs.

….

"Amy?"

I rolled my head to the side and lifted it a small distance off the sand, feeling a searing pain burn through it when the stiffness gave way to a large crack. I closed my eyes for a second to swallow away the pain, wishing my stubborn head would have allowed me to go back into the house last night and actually sleep in a proper bed. I listened for a second as Lauren walked down the wooden steps that led up to the house, another set of steps following after her. The blind panic that soared through me at just the mere thought of it being Reagan, Karma or Liam made me want to be sick, my eyes shooting open and my body lunging up in a way that it completely protested against. When I took in the sight of Theo trailing behind Lauren, a small smile on his face that did nothing to calm the onset of bubbling in my stomach, I groaned loudly before thumping back down on the sand.

"Have you been out here the whole night?" Theo asked once they were both down on the sand. Lauren stepped over and hovered over me, blocking the bright morning sun and allowing me to see a shadowed version of her face through my squinted eyes. I let out a small grunt as a response, rolling onto my side and practically feeling every single bone crack and jolt in my back as though I was an elderly woman struggling to stand up from a bench they had been sat in for hours. After a few rolls to the side that somewhat resembled a beached whale and grabbing onto Lauren to use as leverage to pull myself up, something she strongly objected to by just shoving me away, I managed to make it onto my feet, promising myself to never ever sleep on sand against despite how comfortable it looks.

"Shane told us what happened." Lauren spoke, in a voice that made my eyes roll from how sympathetic it sounded. As I wiped the sand off of my clothes, bending to grab my shoes that I had kicked off last night when I was inspecting my bloodied feet from the day spent walking, I just shrugged my shoulders. I didn't know what they wanted to me say. _Yeah I know, it's pretty shitty being played as part of a deal, but I appreciate your pointless sympathy._ Instead, I looked up and offered the best smile that I could manage and hoped it showed them that I hadn't completely lost it.

"I'm fine." I muttered after a second of them staring at me, my smile having not been enough to quench their worried and sympathetic looks. After another couple of painful seconds went by I kicked my foot on my makeshift pillow that had made from a mound of sand, letting out an annoyed sigh before moving around them and heading for the steps. I stopped just as I felt my feet hit the wood, looking over my shoulder to Lauren who was watching me. "Who's up at the house?"

"I think Reagan's asleep, I haven't seen her. Karma and Liam argued for hours last night before he stormed out and didn't come home, so Shane left about half an hour ago to go and look for him. We were meant to be looking for you, but now that we've found you we might go and grab some breakfast. Want to come?"

"No thanks, I think I just want to get a shower. I'll see you when you get back." I flashed a quick wave goodbye before bolting up the steps before they could offer another invitation to something else in a feeble attempt to entertain the girl who was screwed over. I sighed tiredly as I made my way around the pool and towards the house, rubbing at my eyes as I slid the glass doors behind me, freezing when I took in the sight of Karma curled up on the couch. Her legs were pulled into her chest and her head was tucked down, leaving her squashed up like a small ball in the corner. As I stepped closer I could see the tear streaks down her face, her waterproof mascara having been broken through and leaving the odd black stain on her face that had clearly been smudged as she wiped away tears. The sight itself made my stomach churn. Suddenly I felt guilty for not being here. For not standing next to her when she spoke to Liam, for not squeezing her hand when she needed a little encouragement, and for not wiping away her tears when he most likely continued his tirade of yelling late on into the night.

I chewed on my lip as I stood staring down at her, contemplating whether to wake her not. I wanted to hear her voice. I didn't even want to say anything in particular, and I didn't even want to ask her what had happened, I just wanted to hear her voice. I wanted to slide onto the couch next to her and hug her. But I didn't. Instead I grabbed the blanket that was hanging over the back of the chair next to me and gently laid it down on her, trying my best to contain my smile when I noticed she was wearing her Disneyland shirt.

As I stood under the spray of water in the shower I closed my eyes and prayed that it wasn't loud. I prayed that the sound of the shower wasn't loud enough to wake Reagan up. I prayed that when I climbed out and wrapped my towel around myself, she wouldn't be on the other side of the door prepared with an army of apologies and a bundle of begging for forgiveness. I didn't want that, first of all because I was scared if I saw her right now I might hit her, but second of all because I genuinely didn't know what I would say. I was angry. I was wall-hitting-stuff-throwing-blood-curdling angry, and I didn't know what to say because of that. I couldn't see past the red mist behind my eyes long enough to be able to think straight. I couldn't work out whether I was so angry because I had been lied to by her for so long, or whether it was just because I didn't see it.

"_I meant, what are we doing? Are we just messing around, or this something different?"… "I'm here for you."_

Maybe I had seen it. Maybe deep down I knew that she was here for me, and I knew that maybe she knew that. But I had been so blind, so clouded with the need and want for someone to pick me for once, that I ignored that. I had been so desperate for someone to choose me, to want me, to love me, that I hadn't cared whether the person was honest. It made my stomach churn to think how ignorant I had been this entire trip. It had been so blatantly obvious, Lauren had even spelt it out for me, yet I had ignored it. I haven't entertained the thought that maybe Reagan was part of the idea. I hadn't believed that she could do that, be like that even. The thoughts in my head began to muddle with the heat of the shower and the steam that was rising from it, leaving me feeling like I was needing to gasp for air. I flicked the water off and climbed out of the shower, wrapping the towel around my body that ached in every area, before hesitating at the door. I swung it open quickly, deciding if she was there I was just going to put my head down and ignore her, but she wasn't. The room was empty, just like it had been before I had walked in. I sighed tiredly, sitting on the edge of the bed and watching as drops of water fell from the ends of my hair onto the towel.

….

"-her fault. We were doing fine before she ruining everything, and you know that. You love me Karma, I know you do. You can't be like us, so good together, and just decide to walk away from that. For what, anyway? What does Amy offer that's any better than me?"

My feet slowed as I walked down the stairs. My body felt frozen as I listened to the muffled voices of what sounded like Reagan and Shane trying to coax a very clearly drunk Liam to bed. I ruffled my hands through my hair that was still wet after me falling asleep on the bed for past hour. If anything, my eyes felt more tired and my body ached more after the hour spent wrapped up in the wet towel. I was pulled from my thoughts by the sound of Reagan snapping Liam's name, her voice not having the same red mist effect on me right now as I was more preoccupied with deciding whether I should turn around and hide in my room for a few minutes.

"Liam, stop it. You're drunk, go to sleep." I heard Karma snap. Lauren walked past the bottom of stairs, carrying a load of dishes that she must have cleared from the seating area, but she didn't notice me stood there.

"Where is Amy anyway? Where's the star of the show? Amy!" I listened as Liam began to shout my name through the house, his voice fading when he clearly walked outside to the pool. I groaned before forcing my feet to move, skipping down the last few steps before turning to see Liam searching outside. He was shoving deck chairs about, lifting them and dropping them down as though I was hidden under them, all the while with Shane following him around and trying to quieten him whilst pull him back into the house.

"Maybe we should just- You're awake." Karma spoke as she turned around and noticed me, the worried lines that had been buried into her forehead disappearing as a smile spread across her face. I felt like it was infectious, a small grin tugging on my lips as she just stood there and smiled at me. I felt like we were the only people in the room. I felt like I had been pulled into my own little world, my own little magical world where Karma loved me. She was smiling at me. She was flashing me that perfect grin that made my heart thump in my chest and she was doing it just because she could. Just because she wanted to. It wasn't until Liam bumped into Karma's shoulder and made her snap his name that I noticed he was back in the room, my eyes taking a second to adjust to the speed in which he was coming towards me. I took a small step backwards, realised it was pointless when within three steps he was right in front of me.

"This is all your fault. You know that, right? If it wasn't for you and your stupid fucking feelings me and Karma would be fine. Why couldn't you just fuck Reagan and go along with it?" He was too close. I could feel his warm breath on my face and it was making me nauseous from the overpowering smell of alcohol coming from it. When I glanced at his shirt I was sure it was vomit on it, but I didn't have time to check before I felt his hand connecting to my shoulders and shoving me. _Hard_. I stumbled back, more than I expected and had anticipated, feeling like the wind had been knocked out of my slightly. Practically everyone in the room shouted Liam's name, but he didn't care. When I looked at his face I saw only one thing. _Red mist_. He was seeing red and that was it. He was seeing what I had been seeing an hour ago, and I knew that no matter how loud Shane yelled Liam's name, nothing was breaking him. I forced my legs to move, to attempt to walk past him and flee to the safety of my room like I should have done, but before I even had the chance to get around him he was grabbing my wrist and pulling me back. It was exactly like Reagan had done yesterday, but this was time it hurt more. It felt like he was stopping any blood from getting to my hand and I tugged my wrist away from him, successfully removing it after a few attempts. Shane had now grabbed Liam's arm and was trying to pull him away, managing to get him to create a small amount of distance between us.

"Get off, Shane. I'm not going to do anything." Liam snapped, raising his hands in the air and arching his eyebrow at Shane who hesitantly stepped back a little. I couldn't help but shake the feeling that I was being left out for the wolves to eat, with everyone stood by watching, waiting for something to happen but not actually stopping it beforehand. I felt like someone had popped a bubble and allowed me to breathe when Karma's voice cracked through the room, her feet moving until she was stood next to him and slightly in front of me.

"Liam, just go to bed. If you want to talk about this, I get that, but I won't talk to you until you're sober and I'm not going to stand here and let you blame Amy. This isn't her fault, just like it's not yours or mine. This isn't anyone's fault Liam, it just is what it is. Go to bed, sleep this off and we'll talk later. Okay?"

"Okay?" Liam asked, his voice sounding scratchy as he spoke and small laugh following after him. Karma sighed and stepped to the side to lean against the kitchen island. I turned to Liam when I heard his voice, noticing he was speaking to me. "She was my girlfriend, Amy. She was with someone, yet that didn't stop you from constantly trying and pushing to get that you want. For all we know, Karma probably just caved to get you to back off a little. It's not fucking _okay_."

"Liam-" Karma snapped, but stopped when he raised his hands innocently once more. I sighed weakly before deciding to leave for my room once more, managing one step before I felt like my face had been hit by a truck. The thumping that was now vibrating through my head only got worse when I felt my body collide with what must have been the kitchen counters. The taste of blood poured into my mouth within seconds and when I pulled my hands away from the burning area, I felt myself become instantly dizzy at the red liquid that was smeared over my fingers. The shouting that I could hear was blurred, as though I had my head was under water, and I was struggling to focus on what was going on. Everything felt like it was spinning and I couldn't focus on anything other than the insane pain that was throbbing through my left eye area. It took me another second to realise that the heat that was running down my face was the blood, my fingers rubbing at it and my legs going weak within seconds at just the mere sight and smell of it. I don't know whether my legs just gave way, or whether I slid down the cupboards, but the next thing I knew I was on the kitchen floor holding my head in my hands and trying to ignore the yelling the was going on in the background while I focused on the pain. The childhood fear of blood that had followed me my entire life was in full effect right now and the longer I sat there, the more positive I became that I was going to pass out.

It took me a second to realise that someone was pulling my hands away from my face, but when I did I opened my right eye, the only one I could open, to see Karma crouched in front of me. She looked furious as she shouted at someone to my right, but it felt like too much effort to try and turn my head to see. When she looked back to me the anger disappeared and instead she looked like she was going to cry. Her face looked pained and if I wasn't so dizzy at the sight of my own blood, and the sensation that a train had just been rammed into my head, I would have tried to kiss her. I watched as she cupped my cheek with one hand, the other pulling hair away from my face and peeling it from blood. How much was I bleeding? I must have tried to lift my hand to feel for it again, because Karma spoke something and pulled my hand away softly. Another couple of seconds went by of Karma holding something against my head while she waited for someone to find the first aid kit. My hearing came back at some point, the blurred yelling becoming more defined.

"What the fuck is wrong with you, Liam?" I tried to turn my head to look to where the voices were coming from, which I think was where I had just been stood, but Karma stopped me. Her hands were firm and when I looked back to her she had a small dopey smile on her face. Her eyes were glimmering with a shine that I knew were tears, so this time when I raised my hand I fought her gesture to stop me and instead tucked her hair behind her ear, shivering at the warmth of her cheek.

"I didn't mean to do that. I'm so sorry. I don't know what happened, I just lost it. I just- I got so angry and I lost it. Amy, I'm so sorry. I didn't mean-"

"Please stop yelling." I mumbled quietly. As the pain started to fade slightly I rambled to word _ow_ over and over, trying to open my left eyes and failing every time the pain shot through it. _As soon as I can feel my legs again I am going to hit Liam so hard._

"Don't speak to her, Liam. Just go, right now." Karma snapped in front of me, her hands losing their grip for a slight second and allowing me to turn my head and look to the side. Liam was looking down at me, but he was holding his nose. Even in my dizzy state I could see that blood was gushing through his fingers, the entire sight making me feel confusion before my brain registered the sight of the blood and made me feel like I was going to throw up. I looked away, dropping my head to try and focus on my breathing before feeling it being lifted by Karma once more who now had a first aid kit. When she dabbed something against the corner of my eyebrow I felt like she was pouring flames onto me, fighting against her hand to pull my face away and muttering that I was fine, before I noticed someone else was now holding me in place. I flashed a smile to Lauren when she appeared next to me, a worried look just spreading on her face.

"Jesus, how hard did he hit her? She's practically out of it. Did she hit her head when she fell?" Lauren asked as she handed Karma another small white bandage-type-thing, Karma handing her one back that I was sure had been white a few seconds ago, but now it was red. And I mean really red. Like the kind of red that made my stomach flip yet again and my eyes darken around the edges of my vision as though I was on the edge of fainting.

"I don't know. It might be the blood, it makes her dizzy. But he hit her pretty hard. God, I'm going to fucking kill him." Karma spoke, her voice shaking as she dabbed at my eyebrow once more, this time the pain not hurting at much. The soaring throbbing pain had now simmered down to a dull ache and when I lifted my hand and rubbed at my face, I was thankful to see there wasn't blood everywhere when I took it away. I coughed to clear my throat slightly, shivering when I tasted blood as I swallowed.

"I'm fine, just a little dizzy I think." I managed, watching as Karma bit her lip to fight her smile. She pinched at my eyebrow to do what she said was checking to see whether I needed stitches, but to me it felt like small torture. In the end she grabbed a bag of something from next to her and pressed it to my head, the coolness freezing over me within second and causing a shiver to run through me.

"How's she doing? Me and Reagan managed to get him into bed, she said she would sit with him and make sure he stays until he falls asleep. Do you reckon she has one of those concussion things? Should we take her to the hospital?"

"I'm not going to a hospital. Karma, don't let them take me to a hospital." I muttered quickly, looking up to glare at Shane who had made the suggestion but only managing to squint through one eye at him. I looked back to Karma who was still chewing on her lip, an action that made me dizzy all in itself.

"I would feel a lot better if we went." Karma spoke, offering a small smile which I just ignored as I tried to shake my head, only for me to feel like someone was shaking the entire earth. I stopped and leant my head back against the cupboard, staring at Karma until I watched her let out a small sigh. "Fine, but keep those peas against your head and you're going to bed."

"You two are going to be so cute together," Shane spoke, a small laugh leaving everyone in the room and offering a brief glimpse of relief on what had been an awkward tension. After a few seconds of struggling for my shaky legs to manage to get me to stand up, I was finally up. My head hurt every time I moved it and when I moved the peas away from my face to try and touch my eyebrow the burning that shot through my face made sure I didn't try it again.

"What happened to Liam's nose?" I asked as we made it to the top of the stairs, my legs now feeling better and my body finally bouncing back. I managed to loosen the grip I had on Karma's hand, even moving to let go until I felt her grip pull me back. As I sat on the edge of the bed she stood in front of me, taking the bag of peas from me and slowly lifting them of my face to have a look.

"I think Shane punched him, or it might have been Lauren. I don't know, I didn't really see, I was too busy with you." She spoke, her face leaning down peer at the cut that I assumed was somewhere near my eyebrow. I could finally manage to open my left eye, the pain stinging but manageable.

When Karma walked into the bathroom I fumbled my hand about on the bedside table until I found the small mirror, lifting it to glance at. There was a gash across my eyebrow, it wasn't small but at the same time it wasn't what I had been expecting when I had seen all the blood. I had imagined that half of my head was cut open, but in reality I had done worse damage to my ankles in the past when shaving my legs. A faint purple bruise was already forming on my face, but apart from that everything looked normal. The pain I was feeling on the inside, the bright stars I could see spinning around my head and the dizziness I could feel every time I moved, in no way matched my outside face. I huffed before dropping the mirror onto the floor and pushing myself until I was lay under the covers of the bed, grabbing the bag of peas and manoeuvring my body until I was lay on my right side, allowing me to balance the peas on my face. I heard Karma walk out of the bathroom behind me, her movements coming closer until she was walking around and closing the curtains, drawing the room into a darkness. I struggled to see a clear sight of her until she leant down, her face mere inches from mine and catching me slightly off guard. My breath hitched slightly as chewed on her lip. Even in the darkness I could see the sadness that was washing over her face, the way her face dropped and her fingers wiped quickly at her eyes.

"Karm…"

"No, don't. Please don't speak to me in that perfect way and make me feel loved. I am so sorry, Amy, for all of this. If I had just been honest, none of this would have happened. Me and Liam would have been finished just as soon as we started and he wouldn't have reacted like this, we wouldn't be stuck in North Carolina and you wouldn't be lay in a bed with peas on your eye. Even if I had just ended things with Liam earlier yesterday, instead of putting it off because I was scared this was going to happen, he might not have reacted like this. I handled everything so wrong and it's always you that takes the fall for it."

"Karma, please, don't. I'm tired of going over things constantly. I mean, yes, this wasn't exactly perfect. Of course I wish that you had told you me you loved the night of my mom's wedding, because that would have saved me a lot of tears and money that was spent on tequila. But you didn't, so what's the point in overthinking it now? Besides, I've never been punched before. My first punch was a pretty good one as well, I think he put all of his weight behind it."

"I'm going to kill him. I can't believe he hit you." Karma spoke in disbelief. If I'm honest, I was shocked he hit me too, but I'm also pretty sure if things had been the other way round I would have hit him too. I stretched my hand up to wipe the tears that had fallen down her face, feeling like everything was somehow magically falling into place when she pressed her face into my palm. In that moment I didn't care about the insane amount of drama that needed to be dealt with on the other side of the door, I just cared about Karma.

"I'm tired of being angry. I just want you."

"I just want you too."

"I should think so, I just took a really hard punch for you. This cut better not scar my pretty face." I muttered, loving the small giggle that came from Karma's lips. When she stood up I grabbed her hand, pulling her towards the bed. I ignored her small protest which in all honesty was weak, her voice mumbling that she shouldn't even as she climbed into the bed and curled up next to me. I felt her move until she was pressed up behind me, a feeling I hadn't had since the night in Birmingham when she had sheepishly climbed into my bed and we had both tried out very best to make sure not one inch of us was touching. This time I was completely different. This time every part of me was on fire from the sense of Karma against me. I could feel her breath on my neck since she had pulled my hair out of the way, and when she pressed a small light kiss against my skin I refused to just lie there. I rolled over until I was looking right at her, out faces so close that our noses bumped against each other. I didn't care about the time that we had missed this summer. I didn't care about the pain I had been through. I didn't even care about Reagan or how I had been angry with Karma less than 24 hours ago. None of it mattered anymore, and that made me feel light. A small smile tugged at her lips before she moved her hand up and cupped my cheek, making sure to not to press despite it being my good cheek, before pulling my face forward and kissing me. She was the one who was wanted this kiss. She was the one who tickled her fingers down my neck before grabbing it and pulling me back in for a deeper kiss, the moment only stopping when my the pain in my face spiked again. _She wanted this._

Karma placed one last peck against my lips telling me to roll back over, placing the frozen bag of peas on my eyes and shuffling until she was right up against me, her breath back on my neck and her arm wrapped around my body. Everything was Karma, and everything was alright in that moment.

**I'm sorry it's been so long since I last updated this. I'll try and update more regularly now, however I'm pretty sure I'll end up being a while in-between. Thank you to everyone who is reading and to those to comment, it means a lot. I think I might finish this within a couple of chapters to be honest. Thanks again, hope you enjoy! P.S. Sorry to everyone who wanted this to turn into a Reamy story, I'm afraid my Karmy loving-self just couldn't allow that to happen.**


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